Writing Tip of the Month:
Using Significant Detail
Significant, concrete details are the absolute lifeblood of fiction.
Details are the stuff of persuasiveness. Ellen is sure that Don forgot
to renew the car registration last week, but Don says, “I paid it on
Tuesday. There was a woman in front of me in the line wearing a white
leather mini skirt. She kept swearing at her toddler, who seemed like he
had Downs Syndrome.” After such a description, it’s hard not to believe
Don, even if the RMV keeps sending threatening letters...
In The Art of Fiction, John Gardner speaks of details as ‘proofs.’
“The novelist,” he says, “gives us such details about the streets,
stores, weather, politics and concerns of Cleveland (or wherever the
setting is) and such details about the looks, gestures, and experiences of
his characters that we cannot help believing that the story he tells us is
true.”
A detail is definite and concrete when it appeals to the senses—hearing,
sight, smell, taste, etc. But our details need to be more than just
concrete. They need to be significant.
‘He had thinning light grey hair’ is concrete. It appeals to our
sense of sight. But there are many, many characters out there with
thinning grey hair and we don’t have enough information to differentiate
between this character and all the other middle-aged men in the world.
You can make the detail significant if you write, He had allowed his
thinning grey hair to grow long on one side, and he combed these sparse
strands over the top of his head, carefully securing them with hairspray
to hide his quickly growing bald spot. Ok, it’s a bit elaborate.
But now we know quite a bit more about this character: that he is
probably middle aged, but hasn’t given up on the idea of his own
attractiveness, that he’s uncomfortable with aging, that he is a bit vain
and somewhat persnickety about his appearance…
Remember to use significant details when describing your characters and
settings—details that not only describe, but also tell us something
meaningful about who these people are and your narrator’s attitude toward
them.
Email
Dori or call her at 413 582-0101 if you
have tips topic to suggest.
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