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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 read...
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#5: Post edited
by
Amadeus
·
2020-01-19T20:22:43Z (almost 5 years ago)
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 this, the camera and sound-effects will provide all the sensory information. 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.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.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.
- 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.
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-19T22:13:54Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48172 License name: CC BY-SA 4.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T13:00:33Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48172 License name: CC BY-SA 4.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
#2: Initial revision
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 this, the camera and sound-effects will provide all the sensory information. 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. 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. 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.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2019-09-24T16:26:55Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 3