The Creative Devil in the Writing Details
One of the best compliments I’ve gotten about my novel in progress is when my Dad tells me he can always visualize so well the scenes that I describe. It proves to me at least that I’m doing something right. So, I looked over what I write occasionally and developed an eye for my strengths and weaknesses in my writing. Reading within my genre also helps!
I’ve found that when it comes to describing anything, with a great many nouns, being specific lends a great deal to not only painting the right image in the reader’s mind, but also evoking the correct response. Certainly, don’t spoon-feed excessive detail to readers by any means, but if you want readers to imagine and respond in the right way, specificity lends a great deal.
I’ll show you what I mean:
“The boy ran through the trees, bleeding. A dog chased him, close behind”
We have traces of a decent opening line, but if we whittle some words down to specifics, we can forge a new line that captures a lot more, with a lot less fluff.
You can probably tell straight away that the sentence is a bit too vague, many of the words here can be viewed in all sorts of ways by different readers. While I believe the beauty of fiction writing comes from how each book can be experienced differently by different readers, there may be a problem if two readers see two different dogs, two different boys, or even two different tree scenes from this one line alone. I think that creates more confusion than is warranted.
“The boy ran through the trees, bleeding”.
- It doesn’t do well to leave a character without their name for too long, at least if they will be present across the whole book. A bit of mystery doesn’t hurt but a name will connect one to the character quicker. You could clarify his age and appearance when he’s not in the middle of the action. Charlie comes to mind.
- Adjectives are amazing, especially for running. “Ran quickly” is excessive. Picking a strong adjective is always better than a redundant adverb. I like sprinting for this one. “The road to hell is paved with adverbs” — Stephen King.
- There are more than 70,000 species of trees in the world, so what kind of trees is Charlie running past? Could help whittle down what scene to imagine and where the scene may take place in. Fictional world or otherwise. Depending on the trees, it could even determine the biome, climate and the terrain that Charlie is sprinting over. He could be clambering over mangroves in a swamp, but how about we settle for evergreens. Say… pines? Maybe a few pine needles and pinecones here and there among a few gnarled roots. Good enough picture I say, gives enough smells and sounds to also describe.
- By the way, what time of day is it? Day? Night? Twilight? Dawn? We don’t have to say it directly, but we can suggest it through the scattering of moonlight through the dark branches onto the forest floor. Or perhaps how Charlie can barely see in front of him without nearly bumping into every trunk he narrowly dodges? He’s already in a bit of trouble as it is, the darkness likely isn’t helping. It helps give a bit of tension.
- Where’s the blood coming from? This is easy to specify. He’s already sprinting just fine, so we’ll say his arm is soaked in red. Although, with the amount of blood loss alone, he won’t be sprinting hard for long.
- In this situation I’ve created after these changes, surely this can’t be any old ordinary dog pursuing Charlie? Is it his pet? Or enemy? If a book or body of prose mentions a dog on a street and what it happens to be doing on that street, we once again might get a different image. It could be a small pug being tugged along on a pink leash. Or a labrador dashing over the road because it’s about to leap into the local park after seeing another dog. Or it could be a skinny, street dog with matted fur and visible ribs rummaging inside a steel trash can. A coyote? A wolf? Those are dogs. Let’s not spare Charlie any mercy, we want to hook you in. A massive wolf is hard on Charlie’s heels, driven into a primal state of hunting after smelling his blood.
Considering all these specifics we’ve whittled down, let’s look over a different but same sentence after locking in on the detail.
“Charlie sprinted past the pitch-black evergreens, clutching his severed red arm. The wolf closed the distance each second, its rabid breath growing louder behind his ear.”
It’s not exactly Hemingway or Tolkien but you see how much more gripping of a hook we get when we specify downwards? It’s tricks like these that are so simple yet so powerful that really make your creative writing go the distance. Give it a try when you can. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I may expand on this hook I’ve written…
Thank you for reading and have a beautiful day!
Daniel
