Details, Details

-from Susan

I just finished a much-praised new mystery, out in hard cover from a prestigious publisher. I skimmed the second half after becoming bored and then annoyed at the endless details the author plunked down in the middle of what were supposed to be scenes of action and tension.

At first, I thought the author meant me to pay strict attention to the layout of the room and where the various papers lay. I thought the author would circle around to them and that something in the set up would prove significant. But after a whole lot of these minutely described spaces, I began to wonder: They couldn’t all be significant. No one could ask a reader to remember that many little details, and I was right. In the end, almost none of it was relevant. To me, it felt like padding.

Details are important. The proper use of them grounds your story in some degree of reality, gives your reader a way to see your characters and plot in context, and can be fun if you’re describing someplace exotic or you’re doing your describing with a satirist’s touch. But once you’ve established the place, time, season of the year, and a few telling bits to let us know something about your protagonist’s life and lifestyle, you need to move on.

The trick is figuring out which details are relevant to the story, which will move the story forward or aid the reader in keeping up with it.

The cracks in the sidewalk were large enough that weeds had grown through them and had begun to flower, a defiant garden in this desolate place.

To me, that says we’re looking at a depressed or abandoned neighborhood, somewhere our heroine might rather not be. Surely, she’s going to encounter trouble or an unexpected puzzle, or a person who’s struggling in a hostile situation or a person who is winning against all odds, or… something. But what if the protagonist is simply driving through, absently notes that, and winds up at a mall ten minutes away and never comes back? Then, why did we need that detail? Was it just a sentence the author wrote and thought was nice?

You know what they say: Kill your darlings. I feel that way about details. If they’re not relevant to this story right now, pull them out and, if you can’t bear to kill them, park them in a different document with all those other cool lines you want to use someday. 

Comments

[camille minichino]

Excellent examples, Susan. What I find annoying and distracting is when that same level of detail is used for every character, even a clerk I'll only see once. One detail is enough to give us a picture if he's simply a passerby.

[Terry Shames]

Agreed, Susan. Details can slow the pace so that the reader sneaks up on something significant. And if the something significant doesn't happen...well, all the writer did was slow the pace. No fiction benefits from detail just for detail's sake.

[Pat Morin]

I agree with both Camille and Terry. Also, some important details are lumped together instead of being integrated strategically in the front story so that the action doesn't lag. I really liked the example, too.

[Staci]

Padding the story with extra details is the worst. I end up being so frustrated with the story when I find out none of it mattered. It can be hard, though, to figure out which details to cut, which is where an impartial beta reader or editor can really come in handy.

[Michael A. Black]

Eloquently stated, Susan. As Ibsen said, if you show the audience a gun in the first act, they will expect it to be used by the third. (At least I think it was Ibsen.)

[Susan Shea]

Michael, It may have been Chekhov who said it, but the point's the same and spot on. Staci, you're right - beta readers really help with that and so many other aspects of sharpening and focusing our work. Good point, Pat: Not every detail should cone at the beginning; that's a drag on the story as well. Camille and Terry, my question to myself is, if this is all so clear, how come I'm still tempted to sneak in just one more clever detail?!

[Mysti Berry]

one of my favorite sentences is 10 lines long, full of physical detail and backstory: Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away. The first 30 pages of that book are astonishing.

Sadly, I imitated the form (unconsciously) but not the skill in the first 5 chapters of my first crime novel. It's taken me months to un-Flannery it ;)

Darlings indeed!

[Susan Shea]

Mysti, It's a tough call to pull back from something we love, even if it's an unconscious homage to another writer. I'm not sure you need to un-Flannery in every way, just get more comfortable with what's at the heart of her style and translate it into your own, unique voice. After all, published authors brag about "channeling" Dashiell Hammett and Arthur Conan Doyle all the time!