  Short Stories
This week: What's Enough Detail? Edited by: Jay's debut novel is out now!  
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This month's issue:
What's Enough Detail?
Long enough to cover the topic at hand and short enough to "keep it interesting." |
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Another question, another newsletter! I actually received more than one question this week, but I'll address the rest in comments.
ironlaw writes:
Jay, thanks so much for including me in the March 4 Newsletter. I feel honored. I wonder if you can help answer a question? How much should be left to the reader's imagination? Or how much detail is really necessary and how would one judge that while writing?
So, this is a hard thing to gauge as a writer, and I'd like to say first and foremost that there is no hard and fast rule here, which means there's no such thing as a "right answer," but I'll give it a whack. I usually default to a standard given by my (otherwise rather prim) AP English teacher long ago: you want your writing to be long enough to cover the topic at hand and short enough to "keep it interesting." 
There are a lot of possibilities as to what that entails. One of the things I think a lot of us forget about as writers is setting ourselves targets and limits. A conventional wisdom about writing, and one I don't necessarily disagree with, is that a story is as long as it's supposed to be, but that's not really helpful when you're just getting started with this stuff. I like contests that have word limits as a goalpost of sorts to confine the kind of story you might be writing. The level of detail in a given piece will vary pretty wildly based on the amount of space you allow yourself. If you have limited word count, you should also be using this to help you in constricting your word choices. Detailed description works best in dosages. One good, vivid piece of imagery is more useful than three flimsy generalizations. Be specific and incisive.
Use tighter word limits to force yourself to make better word choices while you write. The reason why many novice writers are instructed to do things like "avoid adverbs at all costs" is that in many (though not all) cases, adverbs are the trans fats of writing-- they let weak verbs and adjectives hang around when one could just pull out a quicker, crisper choice. Descriptions shouldn't be so laden that they weigh down your narrative.
As far as background details go: I am something of a stickler for not wanting to be left in a vacuum, as a reader. I don't require sumptuous and lush backdrops in a piece of flash fiction, but I generally want to have some context for the interaction. That said, resist the urge to drop a truckload of location information at the beginning of a story. Thread it into the characters' observations and into the framework rather than slapping raw exposition in there.
Equally true of characters' thoughts and feelings, as well. Don't include these "details," as, very often, the reader is a better judge of the character's erm, character, than the writer is. (Sorry, writers. I know, we all love our characters, generally, but that we do make excuses and exceptions for them that our readers will not, and therefore our readers are a much more impartial jury in this.) There are very few things that make me more irritated as a reader than having the writer include little observations about their characters -- especially when those little tidbits aren't borne out by the characters' behaviors or actions! Those types of descriptions should be avoided at all costs.
Another temptation to resist is the mirror-observation trick: in the first few paragraphs of the story, the character looks into the mirror and sees... bleh. We've all done it, which is how we know it's trite. Avoid. Work the physical details into other places. Don't fret about eye color unless it is legitimately plot relevant; your reader's already got a working imagination and they're probably gonna fill in the blanks just fine without a Character Description Worksheet frontloaded into the story. (I don't think I've ever let the way a writer describes a character influence the character as I imagine them. Yes, I know I'm weird, but I bet you do this more often than you think, as well, dear reader.)
As far as other types of description go: the details should never be so involved that it inhibits the flow of your story. If it's preventing the action from moving forward after more than a paragraph or so, trim it to your worldbuilding file or wherever you put your stuff that is helpful to you as a writer that isn't necessary for the reader to know about-- sometimes description is more helpful for us as writers than it is for our readers, and that's okay! I have... reams... of that kind of stuff. It's not part of the story itself, but I keep this stuff where I can reference it occasionally, and it helps me go back and pick out those singular crisp details about my world that help the reader feel like they're right there in the story.
Until next time,
Take care and Write on!
~j |
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Feedback from "Character Competence?"
S Ferguson~ Prepping for Prep  writes:
I'm glad Suze brought this up. It's always hard for me to decide whether or not to add detail. Sometimes detail is needed sometimes it's not.
It can be hard to judge, and it's definitely true that with regards to description, "less is more." I hope you find this month's issue equally helpful!
Brooke  writes:
This is a great newsletter topic, well presented and very helpful. You always have great topics and excellent advice. Thank you for the time and effort you put into your editorials. 
 right back atcha, Brooke! Thank you for your kind words!
Howler of the Moon writes:
I have this odd habit where I see a character from a show or a book and I see them doing something completely out of character. For example, there is this character from an animated show who doesn't do much. However I am interested in him and see him in a totally different world as a totally different character. While he is a powerless character in the show, I gave him the ability to become an eagle and a different personality. But here's the point, he looks like the same character as the one in the show. He just acts differently. Help?
What you have there is a character that you might as well just reinvent as your own instead of trying to wedge it into an existing property. Fanfiction can be really fun, but at this point you ought to take a stab at creating your own thing, because it sounds like you'd be great at it.
Quick-Quill  writes:
anything modified can be explained as to why. It was modified to shoot farther, faster, louder, softer. no need for detail only the reason for the modification. The question why is it necessary to say that? A sawed off shotgun. We know what it looks like, but why is it sawed off? so it's easier to conceal. Why do we change anything? to make it better. It's assumed. If the reason needs to be told to move the story to a certain end, as in a murder mystery and the item is the weapon, one only needs to know who the modification affected its outcome. I found out in SHOOTER that using paper wound around a shell won't leave a mark on the casing. WoW that explained how they tied Bob lee Swaggard to the murder. Another of my FAVORITE movies with great twist and turns and plenty of action.
That's a great example of a modification, indeed.
If you have a burning question about writing short stories, send it my way! I'm really enjoying these reader questions; I think we're getting into some great issues that affect lots of us as writers.
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Short Stories: April 01, 2015 Issue [#6907]
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