Detail vs. filler

Setting is character. That is, setting functions in a story very much the way secondary characters function: it shapes and reflects the character of the protagonist, and it functions to propel the protagonist along their arc.

To a certain extent, we are shaped by the people around us, and by the environment we live in. You will grow up differently in a Pennsylvania mining town than you will in a Manhattan penthouse, regardless of your genetics. You will also grow up differently if you go to a poor school or a rich one, if your parents are scholars or farmers or drug addicts, if they are introverts, extroverts, or perverts.

But you can also choose both your environment and the people you associate with to a significant degree. You can move. You can choose different friends. You can cleve to your family or abandon them.

How your protagonist is shaped by the characters around them is fundamental to how you portray who they are, and to how you set them on their story arc towards their crisis and denouement. And, similarly, the choices they make about who to hang out with and how to treat those people tells us who they are, and thus how they will behave and react to the events of their story arc.

Setting does exactly the same thing. It shapes who the character is. The choices they make about where to live, or how to decorate their living quarters, tell us who they are, what they value, and how they will react to things. (Read Charles Ryders descriptions of his rooms at Oxford in Brideshead Revisited for a perfect example of this.)

Does it matter that the couch is old and brown and stained? Yes, because it tells us either that the character is growing up in a poor household that cannot afford better furniture, or that the money is being spent on something else. Other details are needed to complete the picture. Is the couch next to an extensive liquor cabinet? Is there a battered miners lamp sitting on the arm rest, or a syringe and a piece of rubber tubing. Is there a Bob Marley poster on the wall and a battered paperback copy of The Lord of the Rings lying on the floor next to an empty pizza box? Together these details paint very different pictures of the protagonist's living arrangements, all of which suggest different circumstances or a different character.

This is the function of detail in fiction. It maps the influences which shape the character and the arc of their story. They help us understand, in small ways and in great, how and why the events of the story unfold as they should. Thus they are never arbitrary.

This is not to say that a different choice of details could not achieve substantially the same effect. Just as different characters could drive the story to the same climax, so different details of setting could do the same thing. But, nonetheless, the function of detail is precise and clinical, and it always matters.

posted about 5 years ago

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Mark Baker‭

4371 reputation 12 1104 744 58

You are right in thinking both that details are needed - they make the scene come alive, and that the details shouldn't be random.

I use the scenery details first and foremost to set the mood of a scene. You use a meeting in a forest as an example. Is your character comfortable in the forest? Does she know it well, is it a safe environment for her? Then she might notice the tracks some small animal has left, hear the song of a familiar bird (not "a bird", but a particular bird - if I want to convey that she knows the environment, she'd recognise the call). She'd recognise the particular kinds of trees, and use positive or neutral terms to describe them. (E.g. 'knotted' rather than 'gnarled'.)
If, on the other hand, I wished to create a sense of menace, "a bird" might cry above, "something" would rustle in the undergrowth, a fallen tree might block the character's path.
The details that do not help me create the mood would not be there.

Tolkien is known for describing environment in great detail, so let's use the LotR as an example.

The sun was beginning to get low and the light of afternoon was on the land as they went down the hill. So far they had not met a soul on the road. This way was not much used, being hardly fit for carts, and there was little traffic to the Woody End. They had been jogging along again for an hour or more when Sam stopped a moment as if listening. They were now on level ground, and the road after much winding lay straight ahead through grass-land sprinkled with tall trees, outliers of the approaching woods. _{J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, book I, chapter 3 - Three is Company}

Sunset is still safe, but darkness is coming. The hobbits are still in the safety of the Shire, but... There's nothing outstanding about there being nobody on the road, but help isn't going to show up if they need it. The road is straight, so there's nowhere to hide. And approaching woods - again, like the sunset, more threatening environment ahead. Tolkien creates a sense of discomfort: everything should be safe, but... (Then comes their first encounter with a nazgul)

Twilight was about them as they crept back to the lane. The West wind was sighing in the branches. Leaves were whispering. Soon the road began to fall gently but steadily into the dusk. _ibid

Growing sense of disquiet, a short while after meeting the nazgul.

As they walked, brushing their way through bush and herb, sweet odours rose about them. Gollum coughed and retched; but the hobbits breathed deep, and suddenly Sam laughed, for heart’s ease not for jest. They followed a stream that went quickly down before them. Presently it brought them to a small clear lake in a shallow dell: it lay in the broken ruins of an ancient stone basin, the carven rim of which was almost wholly covered with mosses and rose-brambles; iris-swords stood in ranks about it, and water-lily leaves floated on its dark gently-rippling surface; but it was deep and fresh, and spilled ever softly out over a stony lip at the far end.
Here they washed themselves and drank their fill at the in-falling freshet. Then they sought for a resting-place, and a hiding-place; for this land, fair-seeming still, was nonetheless now territory of the Enemy. They had not come very far from the road, and yet even in so short a space they had seen scars of the old wars, and the newer wounds made by the Orcs and other foul servants of the Dark Lord: a pit of uncovered filth and refuse; trees hewn down wantonly and left to die, with evil runes or the fell sign of the Eye cut in rude strokes on their bark.
_{ibid, book IV, chapter 4 - Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit}

Here the details serve to juxtapose the beauty of Ithilien with the threat of Mordor. The hobbits have a moment of respite, but they are still in danger. The familiarity of the plants, the water spilling "softly", the "clear" lake, all create the sensation of safety, while pits of uncovered refuse remind us of the enemy.

So why is your couch green? Perhaps because the proprietor has particular design sensibilities. But if there is no particular reason for it to be green, why not make it "comfy" instead? Or "shabby", if that fits better with the mood you have in mind? (Instead of saying it's shabby, you can describe worn surfaces, tears, threads coming out etc. "Comfy" can be soft, inviting...)

And it's the same with whether your character is surprised by another character or hears them from afar - it's about the mood you want to create for the scene.

posted about 5 years ago

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Galastel‭

1885 reputation 81 551 319 3

I include detail because I think the job of the prose is to assist the imagination of the reader. If there is resonance on other levels, that's great, but it isn't a necessity in my book.

The reader needs to imagine a visual scene, an audio scene, a sensory scene. Just dialogue doesn't cut it, the talking heads and wall of dialogue feels quickly unrealistic.

Obviously in a movie script you can get away with just dialogue for pages on end, the camera and sound-effects will provide all the sensory information; music provides the emotional context. But in text, just dialogue, even though it often is the engine of the story, gets boring and falls flat, it is a purely intellectual exercise and feels divorced from reality. It is unrealistic.

People do things, see things, fiddle with things, use things, and are active in their world. They have feelings, even if those are hard to describe precisely.

When you read Galastel's excerpts from Tolkien, your imagination creates the setting, the sounds, the water and flowers and broken carvings covered in moss.

Do the details matter? Yes and no. They should be appropriate; if we explore a cave we don't expect flowers growing in there. A hospital looks like a hospital, not a hotel.

The details can also reflect a mood of the place, or affect the mood of the characters. Or be a contrast to it: Bing Crosby's "Singing In the Rain" demands Rain, but he is singing because he is happy and in love, despite the normally depressing connotations of rain.

That said, symbolism is not a requirement. In many cases the details are arbitrary. Whether the couch is tan or dark brown doesn't matter. What really matters is that you have to assist the reader in imagining the story with sight and sound, and at times smell and taste when those play an important sensory role. Is her kitchen at dinner odorless? Does she eat or drink without tasting anything? Does the campfire have a smell? Also when it matters to the characters, the weather: cold, heat, humidity, dryness, precipitation, lightning, thunder, wind or the lack thereof, is the sun blinding, painful to glimpse? Is it masked by clouds? Can you feel it on your skin?

Besides plotting and characterization, you are there to assist the reader in imagining a story. If you have a wall of dialogue, you have an under-imagined scene. If it goes on for more than three or four exchanges, it will bore the reader because their imagination dims, then goes dark, it becomes blind and deaf. You have created a sensory-deprivation chamber, and in there the mind wanders, or falls asleep.

The same is true for a wall of backstory or a long "memory" of stuff; it tends to be unimagined as scenes, and just a lot of thinly disguised facts that the author wants the reader to memorize. But they can't, and without assisting the scenic imagination, the backstory gets boring and falls flat. That's not the experience you are aiming to create for your readers.

I always write concrete details, as I go, I spend a healthy percentage of my writing time with my eyes closed imagining every scene play out as if in a movie. Or not a movie: I have even done this for a conversation in a completely dark room, with two characters in separate beds talking, but unable to see a thing.

The details I focus on are details that my POV character can have a reaction to, or thoughts about. Details that can create conflict or emotion. Particularly things that tell the character of the place, I don't have to tell you too much about a tavern if she recognizes rat droppings by the bar, grits her teeth and continues on her mission.

Or say she recognize something in a home as being particularly expensive, and her reaction is that it is indicative of a corrupt politician. She resents it, he has an original painting in his study worth a hundred thousand dollars, that was stolen by Nazis, that belongs in a museum, that was never intended by the artist to be in a private god damn collection decorating some rich jerk's study. Do you need to hear about the rest of the study, or house, or is it sufficiently ostentatious already?

On re-read, I may eliminate some details, change them to more imaginative detail, or look for ways to make them more symbolic, or better fitting to the mood of the conversation. But at least I have something there to keep the reader's imagination from fading.

posted about 5 years ago

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5y ago

Amadeus‭

3156 reputation 2 1399 613 37

The line between something being an 'interesting/critical detail', and 'fluff/time wasting filler' is a fuzzy arbitrary decision best made on a case by case basis. As such we decide what to cut or what to expand based on what works for our story at hand.

There are two key metrics to consider when trying to decide if a section of text really belongs as is, needs to be rewritten, needs to be expanded, or should be cut entirely.

1. Is it interesting to read, and does it provide a satisfactory level of detail/content.

2. Does it fit well with the overarching piece? [Or, in the case where something ranks impressively high on the first metric, does the rest of the piece fit well with it...]

One of the best examples I've been given on why we should address the question of 'useful detail' vs 'needless fluff' with care is that we can carry things to the truly absurd:

"Character has problem. Character resolves problem. The end."

Reducing the majority of stories ever written to three highly questionable sentences shows us that we can obviously take various 'pruning' ideas much too far...

So the ultimate answer to the question boils down to what we are trying to achieve in a book with regards to overall look, feel, tone, etc.

This in turn raises a secondary question which needs to be answered before we can make much headway: What is the look, feel, tone, etc that we are after?

We answer this either by sitting down to carefully consider what we want to write, or by detailed review of what has already been written to try and pull and answer out of our existing work. But it is important to remember that writing is highly flexible. What we set out to write is not always what we have by the end of things. Do not be scared to re-evaluate your work at various stages! [But do be careful of trapping yourself in unproductive loops while you waffle back and forth.]

Do you want your story to stay 'tight' and 'action packed', where everything keeps moving forward with a sort of excitable energy? Then your story will likely benefit from a 'less is more' for details in many cases, with careful consideration as to whether a specific point is worth adding/leaving in or not while you quickly move through your scenes.

On the other hand maybe you want a story that feels more like a long warm bath. Letting the reader slowly soak in a given scene gives us some rather different priorities where the writing decisions shift from 'can I safely gloss over this' and towards something more along the lines of 'how best can I phrase this detail'. Here ordering of details and 'setting the scene' can make or break the feel of a piece, and directly impact a reader's connection or view of a character. [Consider how a chapter on a character stuck in a waiting room may play out. What that character looks at or thinks, and in what order, impacts how the reader thinks about the character.]

As we gain a firm grasp of what we want overall in a piece of writing we gain a better ability to gauge how any given section helps with our goal: Does a section add to the overall work, does it drag things down, or would the overall work be improved by expanding on it?

Also keep in mind that not all readers belong in the same audience. Give careful consideration to your target reader, and be wary of trying to cast too broad of a net! Remember that even the highest ranked authors on best seller lists are still only reaching out to a relatively small chunk of overall readers.

posted about 5 years ago

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TheLuckless‭

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I've always struggled with sensory details in my writing --I'm a dialog-and-plot kind of writer. But for me, writing details really came alive when I discovered your number three approach. When done right, the details offer you so much opportunity for layered, immersive storytelling. Perfunctory, by-the-book, generic "filler" details definitely aren't worth the space they take up on the page.

For that reason I think it's NOT overkill for every word and every detail to mean something. Every detail IS important in the work of the great writers. But the key is to not foreground the work you're doing. It should feel organic, even when it isn't, and operate largely at a subconscious level for the reader. If the reader is noticing how clever or how hardworking you are, it's not a good thing.

I've elaborated more on the ways of using details in answers elsewhere, but you seem to have a good handle on the general idea --you want to put the reader in the head, and mind, and perspective and history of the character, and not just give a dry recital of the objects in the room.

posted about 5 years ago

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Chris Sunami‭

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These are great answers. I'd just add (as a sub-answer) that a brown couch is sort of like a happy smile. The adjective doesn't add much of value. It implies nothing much about the couch, or the smile.

But a well-loved couch, or a stained couch, or a threadbare couch, or a stiff, plastic-covered couch, or a couch with one mismatched pillow--All of these immediately give a history to the couch.

More like an empty smile, or a drooling smile. The adjective does a little work for you.

I'd say... pay attention in books that you read to adjectives that you feel pull their weight.

(Also, assuming a limited perspective, the description informs the reader of the VP Character's mindset. A fun prompt is to ask yourself how each character in your work could describe the same couch differently. One might call it a comfortable couch, another might call the same couch a cheap couch, and so on.)

posted over 4 years ago

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DPT‭

460 reputation 2 29 79 68

I think the textbook answer is: Does the detail contribute to the story? If you describe how a character's house is filled with guns and bombs, that tells us something very different about him than if his house is filled with flowers and framed poetry quotes.

A detail may prove relevant later. This is classic in mystery stories: The writer casually mentions that there is a plastic fork on the kitchen counter and later it turns out that this is the crucial clue that identifies the murderer.

Similarly, mentioning a detail early can make a later plot development seem less contrived. If you say in chapter 4 that the hero has a sword hanging on the wall as a decoration, and he explains how this sword was given to him by his father and it is an important symbol of their family history and that's why he has it hanging on the wall, and then in chapter 7 he yanks this sword off the wall and uses it to defend himself from the villain, that sounds "fair". But if in the middle of a fight scene you suddenly throw in, oh, by the way, the hero just happened to have a sword hanging on the wall, that sounds very contrived.

Really, though, the most useful test is: Is it interesting? If you mention that there is a clock on the wall and then launch into a 30 page description of the exact appearance and nature of this clock, perhaps a few clock collectors will find this interesting, but most readers will not. Or maybe you really can make readers say, "Wow! I never knew that clocks worked like that!"

So, say, if you're trying to paint a mental picture for the reader of what this shop looks like, it might be helpful to write, "There was an aisle full of car products, like oil and antifreeze and windshield wipers. The next aisle had snack foods, and the last had cheap children's toys." A detailed list of every item on the shelves, with brand name, size, list of ingredients, and a description of the package, that went on for pages and pages, would surely be mind-bogglingly boring.

posted about 5 years ago

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Jay‭

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