Details aren’t just luxuries when you’re writing fiction or narrative nonfiction. They’re the glue that will hold your readers’ attention and convince them to stick with you. The judicious use of details brings a story to life, allowing the reader to experience the story instead of just being told about it.
That’s just the start. Not only do details make characters and locales jump to life, they set the mood and tone of your story and, when carefully chosen, capture the essence of the person or place you’re writing about. In The Evolution of Jane, author Cathleen Schine creates two memorable characters in a single paragraph:
Sometimes I would bump into them when I stopped at the diner for a doughnut on my way home from school. Aunt Anna had introduced Graziela to the pleasures of tobacco, and I would see the two of them in a booth, hunched over an ashtray and crumpled red packs of Winstons, their smiling, animated faces in a haze of blue smoke and rapid Spanglish.
“Now,” Aunt Anna said on one of these occasions. “English lessons I teach you. Should anyone ever give you any trouble about anything…”
Graziela looked baffled.
“If, well, let’s say, you, Graziela”—she pointed to Graziela—”unhappy.” She made a sad face. “Bad man bad to Graziela.”
Graziela stared intently at her teacher.
“Anyone bad to Graziela, Graziela say: ‘Son of a bitch.'” Aunt Anna pronounced it very carefully and slowly. “Son of a bitch.”
“Ssahn ahf ah beech.”
“A regular native, my darling.”
I love that bit of dialog as much as the telling details Schine provides.
When trying to figure out how to bring writing to life with details, think of yourself as a camera that has smell-o-vision, taste-o-vision and feel-o-vision. Then record what you’re seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting. If you’re writing fiction, this is the fully-realized world you need to create in your head as well as on the page. Nonfiction writers just need to look around or do research. Either way, make particular note of revealing details and focus on those to help spark your readers’ emotions.
Eventually to make a larger point, you need to pull the camera lens back so that readers understand the larger context of an individual’s experience. Without that individual and the details that make us care, however, those big truths fall as flat as an eggless souffle.
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