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1reading_fox
Sparked by a discussion in a reader's thread which I've shamelessly stolen:
"Selecting the right amount and kind of detail is a tremendously important authorial skill. I want to feel the atmosphere of a twelfth-century Benedictine abbey or a twenty-second-century urban wilderness. I don't want to know that someone is listening to a Beethoven symphony; I want to know which one. The Fifth is one thing, and the Sixth is another. If a reader doesn't recognize the difference, the inclusion of the number won't detract from his understanding; whereas if someone writes "2013 BMW 550xi" as if it mattered that much, all I'll know is that I missed something, and I'll feel as if the author were addressing someone other than me."
"I want the author to use enough of them to put me there, without just compulsively showing off her research. One aspiring author I know opened her novel with a pilot flying a private plane. She isn't a pilot herself, but she wanted everyone to know that she'd learned all the technical details as well as the lingo. She crammed in so much of both that I had only the vaguest idea of what was going on"
I find historical novels particularly bad for this, but SF can suffer infodump problems too. As a reader I want the author to have done the research. It's vitally important that you don't have a pilot turning the steering wheel. But I don't want to know how much research you've done, let alone have all of it dumped on my brain. Ideally I'd like just enough that the protagonist would notice, for verisimilitude, and no more.
Something very similar applies to world-building.
Author's any thoughts? How do you decide how much detail to include?
Readers any examples good and bad?
"Selecting the right amount and kind of detail is a tremendously important authorial skill. I want to feel the atmosphere of a twelfth-century Benedictine abbey or a twenty-second-century urban wilderness. I don't want to know that someone is listening to a Beethoven symphony; I want to know which one. The Fifth is one thing, and the Sixth is another. If a reader doesn't recognize the difference, the inclusion of the number won't detract from his understanding; whereas if someone writes "2013 BMW 550xi" as if it mattered that much, all I'll know is that I missed something, and I'll feel as if the author were addressing someone other than me."
"I want the author to use enough of them to put me there, without just compulsively showing off her research. One aspiring author I know opened her novel with a pilot flying a private plane. She isn't a pilot herself, but she wanted everyone to know that she'd learned all the technical details as well as the lingo. She crammed in so much of both that I had only the vaguest idea of what was going on"
I find historical novels particularly bad for this, but SF can suffer infodump problems too. As a reader I want the author to have done the research. It's vitally important that you don't have a pilot turning the steering wheel. But I don't want to know how much research you've done, let alone have all of it dumped on my brain. Ideally I'd like just enough that the protagonist would notice, for verisimilitude, and no more.
Something very similar applies to world-building.
Author's any thoughts? How do you decide how much detail to include?
Readers any examples good and bad?
2Cecrow
The advice I've heard is to include a telling detail here and there that transmits you know the subject matter. It reassures the knowledgeable reader while grounding the story and earning the trust even of those who don't know the topic.
32wonderY
>1 reading_fox: I don't see any Kate Griffin in your catalog yet.
Her books are torrents of description. But they are always under her control, and she knows when to pull back and restrain them. A Madness of Angels is all experiential. I knew she was genius when she limited stepping into an old store to the dull cludge sound the entry bell made. I immediately knew where I was.
Her books are torrents of description. But they are always under her control, and she knows when to pull back and restrain them. A Madness of Angels is all experiential. I knew she was genius when she limited stepping into an old store to the dull cludge sound the entry bell made. I immediately knew where I was.
4LShelby
I usually try to choose what details to use based on what is story significant and what the viewpoint character seems most likely to notice.
As an example in Serendipity's Tide, when my heroine Batiya is castaway in a little boat, she spends some time dismantling its motor because that's the sort of thing she would do when bored. But I don't have her describe the process in any detail. That would be a huge long descriptive passage with no plot significance.
When she wants to disable the motor so that the pirates can't start it, however, she says exactly how she disables it "I ripped the ground from the coil". If I had been telling that scene from the point of view of her companion, who really doesn't know much about engines, he might have said "Batiya pulled a wire loose" instead.
For many readers "pulled a wire loose" would be a little more informative as far as what specifically is happening. But since I already established that Batiya is disabling the motor, the extra information as to exactly how she does so isn't really important to understand the story, I hope, and it's okay to get a little bit obscure for the sake of establishing who Batiya is?
...Things do get a little complicated for me when something is story significant but my viewpoint character isn't likely to notice it. :(
As an example in Serendipity's Tide, when my heroine Batiya is castaway in a little boat, she spends some time dismantling its motor because that's the sort of thing she would do when bored. But I don't have her describe the process in any detail. That would be a huge long descriptive passage with no plot significance.
When she wants to disable the motor so that the pirates can't start it, however, she says exactly how she disables it "I ripped the ground from the coil". If I had been telling that scene from the point of view of her companion, who really doesn't know much about engines, he might have said "Batiya pulled a wire loose" instead.
For many readers "pulled a wire loose" would be a little more informative as far as what specifically is happening. But since I already established that Batiya is disabling the motor, the extra information as to exactly how she does so isn't really important to understand the story, I hope, and it's okay to get a little bit obscure for the sake of establishing who Batiya is?
...Things do get a little complicated for me when something is story significant but my viewpoint character isn't likely to notice it. :(
5Lyndatrue
>3 2wonderY: Ugh. Touchstones seem to still be misbehaving. Kate Griffin goes to an author which has zero books, and appears to have been added first name first (instead of last name first). The "others" choices are nonexistent. At the very least, it ought to have presented the disambiguation page (http://www.librarything.com/author/griffinkate).
This thread really caught my attention, though. I'm in the middle of a book by one of my favorite authors (Implied Spaces), and he's usually so careful with words, and with just enough explanation to keep things moving.
HOWEVER: I just struggled through 30 pages of a description of a battle, afraid to skip over anything, in case it might be important later. For the curious, and if you own a copy, it is labeled Chapter 16. I have glanced at the beginning of the next chapter, and some parts of what went before *were* important. Was it thirty-two ENDLESS pages of important? I doubt it.
I say this only to point it that even the very best seem to dip into self-indulgence now and then.
Note: This will appear changed because I'm looking at the larger issue of touchstones, which seem to be working incorrectly for poor Kate. I note that
Catherine Webb goes right to her alias, however.
This thread really caught my attention, though. I'm in the middle of a book by one of my favorite authors (Implied Spaces), and he's usually so careful with words, and with just enough explanation to keep things moving.
HOWEVER: I just struggled through 30 pages of a description of a battle, afraid to skip over anything, in case it might be important later. For the curious, and if you own a copy, it is labeled Chapter 16. I have glanced at the beginning of the next chapter, and some parts of what went before *were* important. Was it thirty-two ENDLESS pages of important? I doubt it.
I say this only to point it that even the very best seem to dip into self-indulgence now and then.
Note: This will appear changed because I'm looking at the larger issue of touchstones, which seem to be working incorrectly for poor Kate. I note that
Catherine Webb goes right to her alias, however.
6A.W.Black
I like to draw attention to the key details; if a character is important, I'll describe them.
If the surroundings are important, I'll describe those.
One thing I worry about is boring the readers with too much detail. Finding a balance is tricky.
If the surroundings are important, I'll describe those.
One thing I worry about is boring the readers with too much detail. Finding a balance is tricky.
8gilroy
Some of what details are included depend on your point of view that the story is being written from, and how things flow.
Maybe the main character only knows it's a Beethoven symphony but didn't know the number. Maybe the motorcycle was all the character was versed in.
A first person account will only tell what the character knows and would focus on. (@lshelby gives a perfect example)
A third person limited will suffer the same issues. Character focus.
Omniscient view would be able to add more detail because you have the ghostly narrator who could add the little sparks the characters may not know.
So I say the comment depends on what book the person is reading.
Maybe the main character only knows it's a Beethoven symphony but didn't know the number. Maybe the motorcycle was all the character was versed in.
A first person account will only tell what the character knows and would focus on. (@lshelby gives a perfect example)
A third person limited will suffer the same issues. Character focus.
Omniscient view would be able to add more detail because you have the ghostly narrator who could add the little sparks the characters may not know.
So I say the comment depends on what book the person is reading.
9thorold
>1 reading_fox: It's vitally important that you don't have a pilot turning the steering wheel.
I think that's a key point: a description that goes too deep or not deep enough might weaken the book, but a detail that the reader perceives as factually wrong will definitively kill the reader's confidence in the author. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a real mistake: if it contradicts what the reader thinks he/she knows, that's often bad enough (maybe there are certain types of planes with steering wheels, but if you haven't established that fact, the reader will think you know nothing about aviation...).
Probably the second-worst thing after the egregious error of fact is the redundant explanation ("...Beethoven's fifth symphony, the one that goes da-da-da-DAH..."; "Paris, the French capital...").
Beyond that, all you can usefully say is the obvious point that detail should be there for a good reason, where it's understood that "making the book longer" and "showing off the author's knowledge" are not good reasons. There's got to be room for both the Thomas Hardys who describe everything the characters can see down to the label on the tea-caddy, and the Kafkas who tell you nothing except through what the characters do and say.
I think that's a key point: a description that goes too deep or not deep enough might weaken the book, but a detail that the reader perceives as factually wrong will definitively kill the reader's confidence in the author. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a real mistake: if it contradicts what the reader thinks he/she knows, that's often bad enough (maybe there are certain types of planes with steering wheels, but if you haven't established that fact, the reader will think you know nothing about aviation...).
Probably the second-worst thing after the egregious error of fact is the redundant explanation ("...Beethoven's fifth symphony, the one that goes da-da-da-DAH..."; "Paris, the French capital...").
Beyond that, all you can usefully say is the obvious point that detail should be there for a good reason, where it's understood that "making the book longer" and "showing off the author's knowledge" are not good reasons. There's got to be room for both the Thomas Hardys who describe everything the characters can see down to the label on the tea-caddy, and the Kafkas who tell you nothing except through what the characters do and say.
10LShelby
>8 gilroy: "Omniscient view would be able to add more detail because you have the ghostly narrator who could add the little sparks the characters may not know."
I've tried writing in omniscient a couple times. I don't find that I end up with any more details. I'm still using detail to do the same story things as before, so I use pretty much the exact same amount. I just have a greater range of choices for the types of details to choose.
Which may not be a good thing.
(My husband says "meh" to my two written-in-omniscient novellas. I'm still trying to figure out if it's him not liking omniscient, me being no good at omniscient, or just coincidentally he isn't much into those two stories.)
>9 thorold: "but a detail that the reader perceives as factually wrong will definitively kill the reader's confidence in the author"
I have discovered that I will forgive an author for factual errors fairly readily if I am otherwise enjoying the book a whole lot. But if I'm not really enjoying it that much, a perceived factual error is often the trigger that leads to the book being put down and never picked up again.
>1 reading_fox:
...Back to the original question.
If you think about it, a scene is a segment of dense story detail. A transition or break between scenes is a segment of sparse or no detail.
...Or maybe I'm the only one who thinks about scenes like that?
I tell other writers that since detail density varies within each scene also, there really isn't any such thing as scenes vs transitions -- they're both just the same thing, really.
But nobody seems to believe me.
I've tried writing in omniscient a couple times. I don't find that I end up with any more details. I'm still using detail to do the same story things as before, so I use pretty much the exact same amount. I just have a greater range of choices for the types of details to choose.
Which may not be a good thing.
(My husband says "meh" to my two written-in-omniscient novellas. I'm still trying to figure out if it's him not liking omniscient, me being no good at omniscient, or just coincidentally he isn't much into those two stories.)
>9 thorold: "but a detail that the reader perceives as factually wrong will definitively kill the reader's confidence in the author"
I have discovered that I will forgive an author for factual errors fairly readily if I am otherwise enjoying the book a whole lot. But if I'm not really enjoying it that much, a perceived factual error is often the trigger that leads to the book being put down and never picked up again.
>1 reading_fox:
...Back to the original question.
If you think about it, a scene is a segment of dense story detail. A transition or break between scenes is a segment of sparse or no detail.
...Or maybe I'm the only one who thinks about scenes like that?
I tell other writers that since detail density varies within each scene also, there really isn't any such thing as scenes vs transitions -- they're both just the same thing, really.
But nobody seems to believe me.
