Description is key to a developing story. You want the reader to picture the scene in their mind - what the background looks like, the characters and their, etc. To give the reader a complete picture you want to try and get every one of the senses involved: sight, sound, touch, taste, and scent. Not always are all five sense going to be relevant, though. We tend to spend all of our time on sight, because that's what we notice right off the bat. But when you walk into a restaurant or an especially dirty house, scent is definitely going to prominent there. Every where we go there's always sound. Touch is only really relevant if they're, obviously, touching something. Taste can be used when their eating or have something in their mouth, but can also be used in combination with scent. Our taste buds and noses are definitely connected. When you smell something really strong you can usually taste it too.
With adjectives you have to be careful that you're enhancing the reader's understanding of the situation and not bogging it down with just more words. "The bright blue sky had not a cloud in sight." While this sentence is perfectly fine, couldn't it be better with fewer words? If there's not a cloud in sight, isn't it understood that the sky is blue? "There wasn't a cloud in sight." is so much more concise. Here's a good link that touches on this topic of adjective/adverb overuse: Screenwrightist.com
There are a few adjectives that aren't helpful at all in accurately describing anything. Vague adjectives are useless - might as well have nothing there instead. Avoid using these words: very, extremely, perhaps, maybe, kinda, sorta, just, really, sometimes, and probably more that I can't think of. Another issue is that authors use words that they don't truly know the meaning of or using them inappropriately. When I'm not 100% sure on a word, I look it up in the dictionary. When you use words wrong you give the reader a false description and overall you'll end up confusing them. Dictionaries are your friend - learn to love them as I do.
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