Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Details, Details

Generally speaking, a respectably descriptive passage contains specific, well-observed details, as well as a character’s motivation, thoughts, feelings, and possibly memories.

Of the above, details add color and believability to any writing. Most of the details we know either through observation or we have researched them. To use them according to what the writing requires, we rearrange them sometimes.

This much, I’m sure, we all know.

What I want to put in this blog, however, is a list. A list someone sent me via e-mail. When I looked at it, I laughed because I have used almost all those items on it, as most of us have.

I don’t know why people go around making weird lists like this, but the reason for making this list was to find out what kind of details were inside the first two pages of several published novels.

Most of the items are generalized, more or less. Yet, it is still a list, and I love lists.

Here is the list:

food
bodily fluid—sweat, tears, urine
reference to sex or to death
something sinful or painful
a color
a physical feature
a personality trait
mention of nature
anything with a brand name
furniture
body parts
smell/odor
city, state, or street
walk/gesture/overbite/musculature

Next time, I have a story idea but I don’t know how to start the story, maybe I’ll take a peek at this list. After all, the books that contained one or more of the items in their first two pages were published by serious publishers, I was told.

Anything that helps!