How much detail do you use?

Discussion in 'Setting Development' started by Witchymama, Mar 11, 2016.

  1. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    I'm exactly the other way. I think describing stuff that people are already familiar with is just wasted words. I know that's kinda an extremist approach to take and I don't think it's right for every story but there's just way too many things that just do not matter. The colour of a sofa or carpet or the layout of a house just doesn't matter like ninety nine percent of the time. If something happens where that does matter then sure, no problems, but if it's just not and the characters have no reason to particularly comment on them then I'd rather just leave it out. It lets the focus stay on the characters and ensures that the only breaks from that are to show something important.
     
  2. Witchymama

    Witchymama Active Member

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    I think that when writing from a character's point of view, describing the scene using the descriptive terms that he or she would use is a way to give depth to the characters. I like getting a peek into the minds of my characters and observing how they perceive and interact with the world around them.
     
  3. PBNJDraftNumbA

    PBNJDraftNumbA Member

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    I like the draft/free-write idea. Just let the story flow. Jot down descriptions as they come.
    "Save," "Copy," and "Paste" the original product into an "Archive of Ideas."
    Read it quietly, aloud, and let someone else read it.
    Cut the fluff. Keep the good stuff.
    Read. Edit. Repeat.
    Share. Edit.
    Re-read.
    Share.
    Edit.
    Fin.
    :)

    Note: I am hypocritical here. My own edits are insufficient. ~#A
     
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  4. Doctore

    Doctore Member

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    Yes I would love to read this!
     
  5. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    One caution for all as far as setting... a lot of my WIP takes place in places that I have never seen, except on Google Earth... I spent a lot of time going up the Irkeshtam Pass, in particular, from Kashgar to Kyrgyzstan and along the Alay Valley. For places you have never seen less is probably more... do it generally enough that everyone, including those who actually may have been there, without so much detail that someone says, "Nonsense, that's not like that at all!"
     
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  6. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    I can understand that when you are taking your character somewhere new and interesting and it stands out to them and that's certainly the way to go when that feeling of exoticism and exploration is important to the story but it's all about fitting the story. My books all take place (mostly) within the compass of my character's existing life which may be weird to the reader but weird in conceptual ways; they all live in the modern world with modern stuff doing things that fundamentally we could do we just mostly choose not to. I want to be describing what it feels like to be a white collar junkie or a cult member living the thickness of a wall from our world; the things that make them feel alien not the stuff in their lives that feels familiar.

    Within written media word count is a really important point of emphasis. The more I talk about something the more it stands out. So my junkies hotel room gets 'hotel room' and my cult members room is 'like a university bedroom' because it's just not going to matter. I'll take time talking about the few little personal things my cultist has managed to hide away and the syringes my junkie uses because those actually matter but even then I'll spend radically longer talking about how they think and feel.

    And that's my point. My books are absolutely not something everyone should be imitating. It's arguable if I should be writing them at all; the potential audience consists of emotional masochists and people who like crying while they touch themselves. They are extremely character focused with no physical action and conflicts drawn entirely from inter-personal relationships and inner demons. I got 100k words to wrench your damn heart and I'm going to use as much of it as I absolutely can to serve that.
     
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  7. Witchymama

    Witchymama Active Member

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    I can see how your work would need to focus more inward than outward. It seems as if it will be a compelling and dark book when finished. There's a word I'm looking for..."cerebral" maybe, but I don't think that's right either. Mondays fry my circuits. Either way, it sounds interesting.
     
  8. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    Thank you :) Dark and internal is very much what I'm going for. Harrowing is a word that has been attached to my work and my first ever beta reader used the expression 'a war-crime of a downer ending'. Hopefully it does all fit together as well as I think but it's written like that because everything is in this claustrophobic, exhausting world where everyone is a fuck up and a head case and that very vague, grey outside world contributes to their feeling of alienation; their world feels like only the other people in the plot really exist. If you, like me, enjoy crushing personal failure hit me up and you can have a read.

    I think in anything more up-beat you absolutely need to be more vibrant about the background. If you want the world to be something that people actually want to get out and experience and perhaps enjoy hijinks in then absolutely you want it to feel interesting and rich and you need to reflect that in your writing. Exactly why you might want to write happy things eludes me but if you must that's how you need to do it.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2016
  9. Witchymama

    Witchymama Active Member

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    @LostThePlot , I don't know if I would call my WIP happy and bright. It's not quite as dark as you've described your work to be, but mine is set in an undefined future, when witches and other occultist practice openly. It deals with some deep religious issues, along with an extinction level event and a massive, forced evacuation of humanity to a planet far across space and time. The subplot describes the kidnapping of humanity on this planet, while the main plot revolves around how the main character can outwit the villain, although I use that term kinda loosely. He is not a bad guy. Not at all actually, but he managed to get himself in over his head in his occult practice. As such, he has a deal to maintain with certain darker spirits, that make him have to choose between doing what is right or doing what will keep him alive. He invariable chooses to keep living, no matter what the cost.
    Enter MC. She has self confidence and self esteem issues, along with some addictive behaviors. She is completely unaware of her own power, even though she is no longer in the first blush of youth.
    The beings that abducted humanity and took them to another planet, don't have the best of intentions for them either. The society that humanity is pushed into considers humans, inferior and only fit for servitude, and medical testing, mainly for fun, but also out of curiousity.

    It's not junkies and deviants, but I hope to be able to deliver an overall depressive, "It's all hopeless" atmosphere, up to the last.
     
  10. Witchymama

    Witchymama Active Member

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    I should also say that when I started the piece, I had intended for it to be just another dystopian fantasy, but I have decided that there is more that I can do with it. I can make the message mean something, in the end.
     
  11. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    Mine wound up with a lot of people finding love, in a lot of different ways. The non-sexual I-will-die-for-you kind, though the centurion Antonius and Marcia, and Hina and the mysterious where-is-he-from-really Galosga, wind up marrying and enjoying the sexual part too. Everybody winds up risking everything for someone.
     
  12. IHaveNoName

    IHaveNoName Senior Member Community Volunteer

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    One thing I read in a book about writing many years ago stuck with me: when you're writing a scene, describe a few salient points and let the reader fill in the rest. The example used was a room in a run-down motel: it mentions the wheezing air conditioner, the threadbare carpet, and the chintzy curtains, along with the slight smell of mildew. That's enough for anyone who's been in a motel to easily imagine what the place looks like.

    Something else I picked up: don't just go with visuals. Is there a unique sound? Does something smell notably good/bad? Engage all the reader's senses, and you can draw them further into the scene with only a little work.
     
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  13. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    In one very formal scene in mine, a very important person is sitting in a very formal setting and a buzzing fly is trying its best to distract him
     
  14. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    I don't have a set level for this kind of thing. It really depends on how important the description is to what's going on, the characters' perceptions, why they are perceiving, etc. I may go into florid description in a paragraph where I am setting the feel for the location, but then after that I describe things only as they are appropriate to the perceptions of the characters. Spoon-feeding the reader tends to make them gag, if you'll forgive the metaphor. :)
     
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  15. RahnyJae

    RahnyJae Member

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    I like to think that I'm pretty balanced when it comes to describing rooms and the general interior of places, often referencing those things with a tone like the personality of the character, if they want to be there or not, if they know the place or not. Stuff like that I feel like I have my head around pretty nicely.

    Now. On the other hand. Describing worlds. I want to rip my hair out, I stress over it so much.

    First off, setting up countries and oceans? Impossible. I don't care if there's literally hundreds of writers who have done it, it's clearly impossible. lol No, but seriously, my problem isn't going overboard with detail in this regard, my problem is not feeling like there's enough detail and so my world just comes off rather ordinary or basic. Like for my fantasy WIPs that take place in forests, the most I can come up with is vibrant colors, big trees, and a clearing full of leaves. How I love a clearing. Overall, I don't feel like I'm quite good at capturing a real standout essence of a setting that requires one, you know? Like I look at a movie like Avatar and will literally ask my out loud "how do I put that place into words?" Usually these exercises end with me huffing and being like "look, there's just big glowy and beautiful nature everywhere, okay, and it's a fantasy story, put it together, let your imagination do the work, what do you want from me?" ...Not the most productive attitude, but you know, I'm a work in progress, too. And I know I could totally be overthinking it and so all of this isn't actually as difficult as it feels, and that's okay, I know I tend to do this, but yeah, world building is definitely my setting development point of angst and dilemma.
     
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  16. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    1. I try to give the amount of detail that still lets the imagination create it as they want it to look. Some things obviously need more detail than others, depending on what you are describing. The more important and obscure things do need a little more than the less attractive elements. For instance I write Sci-fi, so naturally characters (be they human or alien) get some description. As well as different planets and some of the neat tech, on top of scenes dependent upon the situation and emotion. Again just enough to give the imagination to create the image. I don't think any two people will 'see' the same thing in my writings. But hey that's just my style, you should find one that works for you. Too much detail and you might get tedious, and too little and it lacks the intrigue. Good Luck striking the right balance for yourself. :p
     
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  17. Witchymama

    Witchymama Active Member

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    I like to think, in my more self confident times, that I manage to give a good balance. Other times, not so much. I have been so long away from writing regularly, that any style I might have had twenty years ago is gone. I think that's overall a good thing. My style has matured a bit, and gotten a healthy dose of cynicism.:cool:
     
  18. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

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    I like crisp details and details that make sense. It's like walking into a library - the very word library implies shelves of books so to further describe shelves of books seems rather redundant. Unless there's something different about the shelves or I can use it to spring board a metaphor or action I avoid mentioning it.

    I also like to use fun words. I'm more interested in making details that are interesting or different. In a WIP I mentioned a bean bag chair as quicksandy, and in another story I don't mention the details of an apartment except for one detail - a broken window patched with flapping duct tape. Most of the time I spread out the details rather than let them bunch up. That way I can work more in. :)
     
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  19. Witchymama

    Witchymama Active Member

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    See? That's the kind of thing that sticks out. I could see the window. If I were in that room, that would be ALL that I could see. Things like that would make anything else in the room irrelevant, even if the room was full of priceless art from throughout history, my mind would be stuck on the duct taped window.
     
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  20. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Words to live by, @RahnyJae. Words to live by. :agreed:

    I personally think it depends on how you approach it. I just read your above paragraph from which I pulled these quotes, and you did an excellent job of describing your feel of the topic in question. And I think that's more important. Sometimes we approach these things as though we're creating a Lego Instruction Booklet on how to build the kick-ass spaceship pictured on the box that made us buy it in the first place. But the kick-ass spaceship is not the instruction booklet. The booklet gets tossed to the side pretty quick, right? But once we've made the spaceship, it is a thing of lines and angles, planes and colors, engines and clear canopy. No one loves the spaceship because of the individual pieces.

    I think looking at it from that angle is more productive. For me, anyway. :)
     
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  21. RahnyJae

    RahnyJae Member

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    Yeah, you nailed it with the Lego analogy. In my head, the camera is zoomed far out on 'wide view' and so I get overwhelmed thinking of how to fit this huge image into like one scene. If my character is standing in the middle of the forest, I feel like I have to describe the entire country that the forest is in, that ocean 100 miles away, and the mountains and valleys in the East, establish where it snows and where it stays hot, all while my character just stands in this one little spot. By the time I finish trying to write all of that in this magical forest kind of a way, I realize my character hasn't done anything yet. Just been standing there like an MMO toon on pause, while I'm 100 miles away trying to name the ocean. So that's the other downside to my overwhelming approach. I'm so busy trying to make the world sound as big as it in my head, that the story doesn't start for like two pages. This is a no-no for sure. lol

    So yeah, I definitely need a more productive approach. I've been practicing making myself slow down and not try to set up the entire world first, then have the character walk around in it, but rather stay zoomed in and set up each piece of the world as my character walks around and interacts with it. Ignoring the fretting in the back of my mind that's saying 'everything is too small' and 'I can't see the world from here, wide shot, wide shot!' has been a trip. lol
     
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  22. Witchymama

    Witchymama Active Member

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    There is nothing wrong with rich world building. Tolkien comes to mind. Maybe keep all of the descriptions in a separate volume. Then when your story is known around the world, people will want it to augment their collection.
     
  23. RahnyJae

    RahnyJae Member

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    Hey, cool strategy, I'll put that in my wheelhouse. Thanks. :)
     
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  24. Delusion of Reference

    Delusion of Reference New Member

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    My use of detail varies—wildly. Some days I'll be in a particularly maximalist mood and write something like this:
    Sultry dusks and dawns clambered in the sky and blistering noons curdled my thoughts with their heat.
    Other days, I'll want to be succinct:
    Wealthy mansions. Trimmed lawns. MEN in suits walk dogs. WOMEN in gowns tend gardens.
    The first was for a short story; the second, a screenplay. Format does have something to do with it, but it all really depends. Some readers gobble up detail, and others puke it out, so there's little telling which way to go.
     
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  25. Kayla Hicks

    Kayla Hicks New Member

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    I think it all depends on your characters and your audience. When I say character I mean, are they seeing something new or experiencing something for the first time, with this you would need more detail that usual. With the audience if your explaining a place that you made up I would personally put more detail than usual unless you had something set in modern times. What audience you gearit towards will certainly make a difference as well.
     
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