Details
When writing a story, we know fiction is fake. Right? You make everything up, you pull characters out of a random name generator, and you paint your world full of details that no one but you could put together.
That’s not exactly how it works. Fiction has varying levels of fabrication alongside little realities. For example, a fantasy story can have realistic scenarios such as the details of an operation after a character suffers a grievous injury, or a short story set in modern day with a realistic situation needs to have its facts straight.
No matter what you are writing, it’s important to pay attention to the details in your story. If you are writing about a thriller-mystery set in the 1930s and one of your character’s pulls out an iPhone…your reader will throw that book down and the world you created will shatter.
I know, I’m being dramatic! But I think you get the gist of where this week’s writing advice is going. Let’s talk about the importance of details in a story and how to make sure you are not picking the wrong ones. A little research goes a long way and NOT being random can help a lot too.
While we talk about the importance of details and picking them out for your story, I want to talk about the research behind that process as well. Even before I became a professional fact-checker, this was my favorite step in the creative process.
The Importance of Details
When writing a story, little details can give a lot of life to the book. For example, if your character has a car, is it just a car or is it a 2007 Honda Civic with a bad starter that makes the character late to work at least once a week?
Details can really flesh out a story and bring it to life. I often see writers going two different ways. Towards too many details or none at all. It’s important to meet somewhere in the middle. Not enough detail can have your reader scratching their head and wondering what is going on in the story. Too much detail can be blinding like a thick forest with the reader unable to look through all the thicket.
Here is an example:
Too little detail:
Mary walked to the park after her mother left.
What happened? Did her mom leave on normal terms or is this a bad event? Without the context clues and any details, we don’t know what this sentence is showing us.
Too much detail:
Mary ran to the forested park, her striped Velcro tennis shoes with rainbows pounding down the sidewalk after her strict mother with her straight-dyed-hair left again to return in a time unknown to her.
There is so much in one sentence that it sounds like there are multiple focuses. We have Mary, her shoes, she is running, and a small portrait of her mother that is a little confusing... All these details might give good ideas (Mary sounds like she is a child, her mother is strict, her mother is leaving, and Mary doesn’t know when she will be back) but it is too much in one sentence. If I was editing a piece like this, I would recommend splitting this up into multiple sentences or picking one thing to focus on.
Just right:
Mary, with her Velcro shoe straps undone, ran to the park after her mom left.
I decided to keep the detail of her shoes here to show how Mary is feeling right now. Unless she is a normally reckless child, this hints at how upset or distracted she might be feeling due to the shoes being undone in a moment or sorrow and distraction at that thought, or in an excited rush to fit in as much playtime at the park as possible. The following sentence can answer that question for us.
It’s important to pick details that add to the story, not fill a sentence up with fluff. If you edit your story and certain details can be removed without changing the meaning, remove those. That’s how you can tell if something is important to keep or not.
In the end, the details you chose sculpt the meaning of the sentence. In the example of Mary, you could highlight the emotion in reaction to her mother leaving, why the mother left, and more.
Getting Details Right
This is my favorite part.
When you write a story, it’s important to define what exists in your characters’ world. This can be a real-world setting, sci-fi, or fantasy. Every world has its own rules and time-period. If you write a story in a certain time, like the 1930s mystery I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, there will be some details that do not exist yet such as iPhones, computers, spandex, and more.
When working on a story in a certain time, you need to check EVERYTHING! For example, the shape of the cups, the chairs the characters sit on, the combs, tools, weapons, hairstyles, make-up, clothes, and more. Everything your character sees, touches, and uses needs to be checked and fit right in.
To exhibit this, I have a list of examples about random details and what could go wrong if you do not check them right. The goal here is to create a vivid world within your story that has good balance and makes sense. A detail that doesn’t fit in your world (when it’s supposed to fit) can stick out very strange to a reader. We want to avoid that as much as possible.
Example 1: Invention VS Usage
It’s safe to assume you probably don’t know exactly when some things were invented. For example, did you know the patent for ballpoint pens was granted to John J Loud in 1888 but they were not made until the 1930s by another inventor and were not even mass produced until the 1940s at a cost equivalent of $180.00 today?
With the above information, if you looked up and saw that the pens were made in the 1930s and had your character (in a regular middle-class family in New York City) write with a ballpoint pen at school on a regular basis…that would not be feasible.
When researching specific items to put in time-restricted settings, make sure you not only look up when something was invented but when it came into wide-usage.
Example 2: Fashion
A common detail I see a lot of writers use out of habit is the idea of blue jeans. These are a classic staple in American fashion and has been for a long time. Did you know blue jeans were not a thing until they were made by a Jewish inventor in 1930?
In a similar vein, when designing or describing outfits, do you know when buttons, latches, or zippers were used, invented, and what they were made of? Food for thought. They haven’t always been around, believe it or not.
Example 3: The Middle Ages
The European Medieval Age is a big topic I enjoy. There are many TV shows, historical dramas, and books on the subject. I used to write many fantasy stories in those settings, but it wasn’t until I walked through the actual locations in real-life myself that I realized how much I had been getting wrong.
If you imagine a medieval castle, were you ever aware of the rushes scattered on the floor to help with odor and heat? Noble houses and others most commonly had wooden benches as a main staple of furniture. Every doorway usually has a high threshold and low opening you have to simultaneously step over and duck under due to the architecture being unable to support such large openings in the walls.
Example 4: Settings
This example comes from a book my sister was reading. I wish I could quote it for you but in short, a character was trapped in a dungeon with one window facing east. Out of the same window she watched the sun rise and set visibly.
The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
These are random examples, but I’m trying to hit a variety of topics to help you see how details can be so important. If there is anything in your story that a reader can question or recognize as incorrect, they will lose faith in your storytelling. You don’t want your reader pointing at your book and claiming, “You are wrong!”
To make my points on this even more complicated, make sure what details you are including are accurate to the geographical location you are drawing your references from.
Regional Differences
In English, there are so many ways to say things. While it might be obvious that the same object might have two different names in two different countries (crisps in British English and chips in American English) did you ever think to check regional dialects in your area?
Since I am an American, most of these are from American dialects, but let this train of thought help you remember to research into regional word choices the next time you create a setting in your story if it is different from your own.
For example, what do you call a small body of running water: stream, creek, or brook?
Fireflies is the name for those glowing insects in New England and in the West (it is also common in Japanese to English translations and studies.) They are commonly called “lightning bugs” in the American Midwest and South. Did you know there are no fireflies west of the Rocky Mountains?
If you are writing a story and your character wants to order a drink, do you know if they should say coke, pop, or soda?
Here are some more:
Pit/ seed
Roundabouts/ traffic circles/ rotaries
Y’all/ you guys/ yinz/ youse/ you all
Milkshake/ frappe
Gummies/ jellies
Frosting/ icing/ cream
Sucker/ lollipop
Sneakers/tennis shoes
Gutter/ eaves trough/ rain spout
Drinking fountain/ bubbler/ water fountain
Faucet/ spigot
Cart/ buggy/ carriage
Yard sale/ garage sale/ rummage sale/ tag sale
Pancake/ flat cakes/ flapjack
Do you know how many different names a bathroom can have?
Bathroom
Washroom
Restroom
Water Closet
Powder Room
Toilet
Shower Room
Bath
Lavatory
The Jacks
Comfort Station
Cloak Room
And more!!
Conclusion
I’ll stop there; I could go on all day. The point of this week’s exercise was to throw some thought-provoking ideas at you as you plan or work on your current stories. I don’t want all these details to overwhelm you—these are all just ways to think about how to improve your work.
Make your details work for you. Avoid clutter and aim for clarity! 😊
Best,
Danni Lynn, Evangeline40003