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| General Writing Discussion For aspiring writers of science fiction and fantasy to discuss issues of writing. |
13th April 2012, 02:58 PM
| #47 (permalink) |
| Truth. Order. Moderation.  | Re: How much detail? I tried "Person Attempting Joke" and it didn't read as well. And if anyone thinks I was going to open the floodgates by using "Woman" in that line, such a one has another think -- and a pointy sword -- in his future. |
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7th June 2012, 07:11 PM
| #49 (permalink) |
| Registered User Join Date: May 2012 Location: Georgia
Posts: 40
| Re: How much detail? I've run into this detail issue myself. On the one hand, crafting a world from scratch requires detail and i have an almost Tolkien-level verbosity level at times. What i found is a happy medium is to take advantage of the multiple-POV 3rd person narrative that I'm using. Some characters (including one of the protagonists) are very detail oriented and thus see the world in very precise order. For example, when he walks into a room and looks around it's discussed in terms of precise measurements. Or when he sees a person he doesn't see 'a tall person' he sees, 'someone 180 centimeters tall'. The exact details aren't necessarily plot relevant but it helps convey how the character sees the world, which does have plot implications... Conversely, another not-so-detail-oriented character seeing a different but sight would note the room is 'large' and the person 'tall' and only gets fleshed out if needed. |
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7th June 2012, 09:14 PM
| #50 (permalink) |
| Purveyor of Nerdliness  Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: California
Posts: 838
| Re: How much detail? i don't know if there's a rule of thumb about detail...just make sure readers can "picture" things. try to be evocative as well as clinical. resist the urge to describe everything in perfect detail...infodumps are really boring to read. |
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8th June 2012, 08:54 PM
| #51 (permalink) |
| Registered User Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Nottingham
Posts: 51
| Re: How much detail? My fear with detail is the "chewing gum on the mantlepiece" issue. Trying to find an evocative detail that helps embed the reader in the secondary world, but without making the detail seem portentous or overly significant. I had a moment like that reading Xenocide by Orson Scott Card. The humans were inside a compound on an alien world in which a lethal virus was endemic, rapidly mutating, and threatening to overcome their defenses and infect the quarantined area. At one point, he mentioned a muddy track which had a puddle in it that wouldn't dry out (clearly he wrote it rather more eloquently), and a bit of my brain was thinking "Oooh. Significant. Has the virus got in...?" It hadn't. It was just a puddle. |
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