Folks - howdy from a new guy. I am not a professional writer, I'm just doing a sort of comedy/diary thing from a past life for amusement that I may or may not even publish. I have read a couple very good books on novel writing and other classic guidelines so I'm not totally ignorant, I hope. The specific thing I'd like some opinions on is this: When writing up an anecdote, is it 1- more preferable to have the general content of that anecdote (the event itself) have as much raw pizzazz starting out, no matter what flair you add to it or 2- is it just as much (or more) valid to be able to sort of "breathe life" into an event that may not have super high explosiveness or sensationalism in the raw content, but rather add your own explosiveness to it by your embellishments and flair? I'm of two minds when it comes to this...one could say that a good writer should be able to make the event someone brushing their teeth into a snappy/funny story worth someone's time to read, or that it's a waste of the reader's time to bother them with an "slightly eventful" event, the minimum of adverbs/adjectives being used in either case. I know in movies there are directors that can, by intensifying the direction, make a mouse crawling across the floor seem like a heart-pounder. In my case the anecdote/s are stupid things stupid teenagers get themselves into that have lots of potential for disaster, but don't necessarily end up that way. I'm curious for some feedback on this, and any examples in classic stories/authors you might have for either 1 or 2 above. Thanks much!
Either. You can make eating a sandwich an exciting, funny event, or write about saving the world. It's up to you. As long as it's a good read, the reader won't care.