Comments on: How to Use Detail to Create Great Moments http://writeabetternovel.net/how-to-use-detail-to-create-great-moments/ Practical wisdom for novelists and other storytellers Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:03:53 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Bill Henderson http://writeabetternovel.net/how-to-use-detail-to-create-great-moments/comment-page-1/#comment-332 Bill Henderson Wed, 04 Feb 2009 02:56:56 +0000 http://truevoice-blog.com/?p=918#comment-332 Absolutely, Marc, a good metaphor can certainly brand a detail with uniqueness. But the choice of a simple action, clearly described, is just as effective. That's what you've done here, quite well. Your suggestion conveys Jennifer's emotion indirectly, thus more powerfully, though I'd say it's description not metaphor (no matter how symbolic). Here's an afterthought: A revision of this scene would start by asking: "where is the emotion?" Then, because there are two characters, both showing emoton,"whose emotion should get the focus?" I intentionally mishandled the scene to illustrate my point--overwrote Bobby's feverish frenzy, and underwrote Jennifer's deeper (I assumed) emotion. So Jennifer's was the strategically important emotion, but I bungled the strategy. To fix it, a new balance should be established. You did half the job, but in addition, you'd have to peel away some of Bobby's excess. Absolutely, Marc, a good metaphor can certainly brand a detail with uniqueness. But the choice of a simple action, clearly described, is just as effective. That’s what you’ve done here, quite well. Your suggestion conveys Jennifer’s emotion indirectly, thus more powerfully, though I’d say it’s description not metaphor (no matter how symbolic).

Here’s an afterthought: A revision of this scene would start by asking: “where is the emotion?” Then, because there are two characters, both showing emoton,”whose emotion should get the focus?” I intentionally mishandled the scene to illustrate my point–overwrote Bobby’s feverish frenzy, and underwrote Jennifer’s deeper (I assumed) emotion. So Jennifer’s was the strategically important emotion, but I bungled the strategy. To fix it, a new balance should be established. You did half the job, but in addition, you’d have to peel away some of Bobby’s excess.

]]> By: minsker http://writeabetternovel.net/how-to-use-detail-to-create-great-moments/comment-page-1/#comment-329 minsker Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:48:18 +0000 http://truevoice-blog.com/?p=918#comment-329 Bill - This is very helpful advice and I think, from the many writing workshops I took in my undergrad and graduate days, that too many writers suffer from an inability to discern what's important in terms of detail and what's not. One of my favorite professors (a novelist himself) once quipped, "If the detail can be construed as metaphoric, keep it in." With that in mind and reading your passage, the writer could add something like this: <i>Halting at the table he fixed his gaze on Jennifer, WHO STOOD OVER THE STOVE, STIRRING THE RICE AND BEANS IN A SLOW, REPETITIVE MOTION. The room seemed suddenly so quiet it was hard to believe a sound had ever been heard in it.</i> Bill -
This is very helpful advice and I think, from the many writing workshops I took in my undergrad and graduate days, that too many writers suffer from an inability to discern what’s important in terms of detail and what’s not. One of my favorite professors (a novelist himself) once quipped, “If the detail can be construed as metaphoric, keep it in.”

With that in mind and reading your passage, the writer could add something like this:

Halting at the table he fixed his gaze on Jennifer, WHO STOOD OVER THE STOVE, STIRRING THE RICE AND BEANS IN A SLOW, REPETITIVE MOTION. The room seemed suddenly so quiet it was hard to believe a sound had ever been heard in it.

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