Inside Scoop

[20] Getting Into Detail

How important is getting into detail when you’re writing?

Vicky_nfs: Enough, but not too much…

As a writer, it is your responsibility to make sure that the reader can ‘live’ your story. It is important that you put enough detail into your writing, making it so that the reader can imagine what your characters are going through, where they are – you’re literally the reader’s eyes and ears.

Personally, I’m not too fond of too much detail or descriptions while I’m reading. It is inevitable for me to create images of the story in my head, and they’ll always differ from the original or the way it has been described in the story. A great example is Jace from the Mortal Instruments series, it is repeatedly mentioned in the book that he has blonde-angelic hair, yet, I keep picturing him as a dark haired guy. So, each time those details are mentioned in a story, there’s a contradiction between what I’m reading and what I’m seeing in my imagination – something that isn’t fun when you’re reading.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing when a writer leaves some space for the reader to make the story his/her own by not putting every single detail in the story. To me, it makes a story a little more personal and a lot easier to get sucked into.  Then again, I can understand how some people ‘need’ a lot of detail to be able to ‘see’ the story in their mind, but just like you have these people, you also have those who don’t need a lot of details and/or description at all – like me. Still, you’ll always need details in a story, otherwise it would turn into a robotic story of only dialog and basic description of the actions.

Over all, I’d say it’s best to write in a way that would make you want to read your story. When you do it like that, you’re bound to like your story and I think that’s the first step in writing: liking what you write.

Leigh19: Typically, it's very important.

The whole objective to having details is it defines your story. From location to scenery to characters and emotions- details play a huge role in it. It's actively describing your story to the reader so they see what you choose to show them. It's a hard call to make when you have just the right amount of detail or just a bit too much. Over-detailing your story will undoubtedly bore your reader which may cause them to lose interest or be too confused to continue. Also not giving enough details won't give the reader an avid portrayal of what it is you want to show them and they might find it difficult to connect or "get in" the story. For myself personal, I suck at detailing. As a writer I'm striving to better myself and I'll admit at times I'm  lazy and reuse words instead of finding more appropriately suited ones to give my story better detailing ( I do eventually edit through my word to tidy it up).

For me the best thing is using a dictionary, see how a word is used in context and usually you'll find several sentences that can actually be of use. Not to mention the thesaurus will give you an amazing variety that again will help with detailing your story.

Emmiie: Very important!

In many ways, writing is like painting a picture.

Detail is the key to any great story. I mean, you’re the author, you’re creating this entire world—so your readers aren’t going to be able to visualise anything if you don’t describe it. But, like most things to do with writing, there is a very fine line you don’t want to cross. It’s important to describe things, but you don’t want to ‘over-describe’ because then your readers may get bored.

It’s all about separating important details from the not so important details. Your readers don’t need to know every single thing your characters are seeing, so just pick out a few details you find important to your story. EG: if one of your clumsy characters is going to break a lamp, try and mention that lamp being there prior to it breaking.

All writers have a different way of describing, but I try to not state the obvious things. I mean, if your character is going into a bedroom, you don’t really need to state that there’s a bed in there, because your reader will automatically assume that. Of course there is nothing wrong with stating the obvious things, if you want to mention the sheets on their bed—or something like that, that’s perfectly fine. But when your character enters a room, you don’t always want to go off into some cut scene where they are like, “bed, drawers, desk, cupboard, TV, posters, bookcase…ect,” because most of these things will be presumed anyway when you announce the room they are entering.

In saying that, a lot of great authors do describe what their characters are seeing when they enter an important room…like Richelle Mead (my favourite author) and Vampire Academy. (If you’ve read it, you might know what I’m talking about here). Like, when Rose enters the Royal Court, a lot of description went into that, and I wasn’t bored whilst reading it. So, maybe it depends on how you word it. If you make the description new and exciting, then it’s fun to read.

Describing can be hard at times. I mean, how do we know when something is or isn’t important? I’d say the best way to know for sure is to read out loud, if it sounds wrong, drags out, or you get bored reading it…then it probably needs some slight adjustments. But never give up, practice makes perfect!