Examining the Details

Details are crucial to a story, but few people talk about getting them right. They can either make a story come to life or break it into fragmented pieces that have readers shaking their heads. Adding details is a balancing act. Too many and it bogs the story down,  making it slow to sludge through and boring. Too few and the story becomes vague with little substance.

I recently read at least half a dozen books (some by well-known authors) that had way too many details. For one of them, I wrote, "This is a wonderful main story, but there's too much extraneous material that has little to do with moving the story forward and makes parts of it boring" in the review.

In at least one of them (and probably more), the author appeared to be trying to stretch the story out to make a longer book by adding lots of details. But it made her book much less interesting and enjoyable. A string of adjectives before a noun does not make for good writing. 

When it comes to details, writers should say as much as possible with as few words as possible, giving a clear visual image. Details should be woven into the story and not expounded on in narratives. Never write pages of description. I have an aversion to books weighed down with descriptions, and I often wonder if I include enough of them in my writing. Therefore, I am always surprised when reviewers praise my books for the details that allow them to visualize the setting and feel as if they were there. I hope that means I'm getting the details right.

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