Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

50%
+0 −0
Q&A How to interleave a story with context and introspection?

In principle it works. Great magazine writers do it all the time. The thing is, at every turn of a story, you have to make the reader care. Detail for the sake of detail is just a distraction. If y...

posted 7y ago by Mark Baker‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2020-01-03T20:41:54Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29075
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:43:30Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29075
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:43:30Z (almost 5 years ago)
In principle it works. Great magazine writers do it all the time. The thing is, at every turn of a story, you have to make the reader care. Detail for the sake of detail is just a distraction. If you include a detail it has to be what we call in the trade a "telling detail" it has to point to something larger than itself, it has to align with all the particles of story along the magnetic pole of the things you want the reader to care about, and which the reader can reasonably be made to care about if your expose them in the right way.

Almost missing your train because you are wearing flip flops is a detail, a very human detail, but it is not, in the context in which you have presented it, a telling detail. It does not point in any meaningful way to the your point about eroding services in rural areas. A telling detail for that kind of complaint is a senior who can't drive missing a medical appointment because there is not train that will get them there on time.

You can and should interleave context, anecdote, and reflection in an extended essay, especially one that has an emotional hook, but you have to do it in a way that maintains an arc of caring on the reader's part.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-07-04T21:45:07Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 2