I'm rereading a wonderful book: Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud. If you've never read it, stop reading this post right now and remedy the situation.
I'll wait.
Don't let the fact that he's talking about illustrated work disturb you. His take on how to tell stories is directly related to the writing of fiction in all its forms.
In this post, I'll focus on what he has to say about how the reader is your partner in story-telling.
As McCloud says about the above pair of panels (p. 66)…
Every act committed to paper by the comics artist is aided and abetted by a silent accomplice. An equal partner in crime known as the reader.
I may have drawn an axe being raised in this example, but I'm not the one who let it drop or decided how hard the blow, or who screamed, or why.
That, dear reader, was your special crime, each of you committing it your own style.
All of you participated in the murder. All of you held the axe and chose your spot.
To kill a man between panels is to condemn him to a thousand deaths.
Let me repeat that — the reader does the work; the artist merely sets it up. If you were writing a bedroom scene, think how little you actually need to show for the reader to fill in the details in ways far more vividly than you can conjure. It's a very clear presentation of how less can be more.