Concrete and specific

Credibility is about concreteness. We believe this is happening because the specificity of the details indicates that this is really happening, that only experiencing this situation would lead to such vivid observations.

Read this blog entry about "what it's like being poor" by s/f writer John Scalzi, and I bet it's clear that this is someone who has been poor. We believe this because the details are so precise.

But also imagine that you're writing about a kid who is growing up poor. Notice how many of these precise details could be used to infuse a scene (like the kid getting ready for school) with immediacy (she's getting ready, and her mom is making toast for her, and a roach walks across the bread, and both of them pretend not to notice because they can't afford to throw the bread out).

This is an aspect of voice, I think--the precision of detail. The desire to get so real, to make the fictional scene come alive, that's voice. It's not just the word choice, it's the recognition of the importance of getting the reality in there.

Details, details... they create trust. The right details, that is.

There are good details and bad details. The bad ones distract the reader and make the wrong things seem important. But good details reveal something that deepens the experience for the reader.

So those who say details don't matter, only the plot matters, well, a plot without details? That's a skeleton, and skeletons can't live. As John Gardner points out, it's details that flesh out the "fictive dream" and make it live in the imagination of the reader.

Story is more than plot. Character is more than plot. Stephen King says, "Plot is the good writer's last resort, and the dullard's first choice."

But of course, details can be wrong, or too generic, or too blatant, or too numerous. That's where "details" gets the bad rep, because too many writers resort to describing the world or the character by throwing a bunch of details out and hoping they stick to something. Don't do that. Choose details that reveal, and -- this is important-- present those details with the right terms, the right emphasis.


From News from Lake Wobegon:
But George takes himself too seriously. (Assertion.)

He earns too much money. You can tell by the way his hair is cut, the tweeds he wears, the wool scarves. That's okay. He's successful, and more power to him. But he talks about things you're not supposed to talk about. He talks about trips he's taken that cost more than the people he's hunting with earn in a year. And that's not good form in Lake Wobegon. He's just out of place somehow. He shouldn't have told them about going to that spa in India and the steambaths and the women who bathe you every day, and breakfast on the veranda.

And he wants to talk about big things that Clint just doesn't want to talk about. He wants to talk about Obama, and he wants to talk about Wall Street, and he wants to talk about health care reform. And he wants to talk about the vote in the Lutheran church back in August about ordaining gay pastors. And Clint just doesn't want to talk about that. You don't talk about that when you're hunting, don't you see. You want to get away from the dry life of paper moving across a desk and get out in the woods. The reason is not to kill deer necessarily, but to restore your primitive senses, to listen again, to be quiet, and to listen and to watch and hear the leaves rustle and to hear the squirrels dash across the ground, and to hear the sound of the porcupine as he moves towards you, and the fisher moving through the weeds, and the nuthatch and the chickadee. And to hear rain falling, little drops of rain on the leaves on the trees-- to hear all of this. The hunter is focused on the real world around him. And George somehow wants to talk about the ELCA, and Clint does not.

He does tell that one good story about the trip to Antarctica. It was an expensive trip, but it involved seasickness and rough seas and diarrhea, so it was a good story. Then they got down to Antarctica, and the blizzard came, so they had to dig a hole in the snow to get out of the wind. When you have to dig a hole down into the snow and you have diarrhea, you have the makings of a good story. The smell that they gave off attracted the elephant seals, the male seals who took them as rivals for the hands of female seals. In order to defend themselves, the men had to sing in falsetto. They sang in high tremulous voices, "All You Need Is Love," and they had to sing it over and over again. That was a good story. But there weren't many stories. There were mostly just opinions.

What is particularly cool, actually, is that a bit after this, Clint saves George's life, and George, weeping, "wants to talk," but Clint still wishes he'd shut up: This is just what you do, that's all, in Lake Wobegon. You don't see somebody who is in trouble and pretend you don't see him. You do what you're supposed to do. He saved his life, but never mind. You know, you know, there's only so much you can do, but you do have to do that much.

The details are part of the voice of the author-- he's caring about nature and quiet, but also he's enough of a curmudgeon to grump about the specific topics George brings up (and notice how precisely this sets the time-- late fall, 2009). He has a pre-pubescent boy's fascination with the scatological, and he remembers certain things very exactly-- "elephant seals," and the title of the Beatle song. (This is Clint's point of view, of course.) He knows also what birds are there in the woods, and their names and habits.

But this plenitude of detail, of complaint, contrasts with the spareness of the big "plot event": "He saved his life, but never mind." Wow. (That is such a great sentence, btw.) See how the detail of the woods, of George's conversational topics, sets up the realization in the end. You do what you have to do. No need to blather about it or demand acknowledgment for it. That is, we know this is not someone who can't tell us more if he wants too. He can-- we see he can tell us all about the annoyance of George ("that spa in India"-- doesn't it just matter so much that he added "in India," so much more exotic than "in Sarasota?"). So when he backs off and telegraphs the big event, we know-- it's not because this is a writer or character who doesn't notice detail, who doesn't care. It's because he just did what he had to do, save a life, and therein is the point, isn't it? The details set up the theme by providing the contrast between the full description and the spare facts at the end.

So-- well, anyway, details can do a lot. :) And Garrison Keillor is a storyteller we can all learn from, because he goes deep and not broad. He uses details to make you believe this is a real place and these are real people. And he uses details to make you trust him, because he knows so completely this world-- it must exist.
Here's a link to podcasts of The News from Lake Wobegon.

Theresa is right. :)

RE: details vs. plot-- they are not, as you keep pointing out, Theresa, mutually exclusive. Details can help support and drive the plot, and to paraphrase van der Rohe, the theme is definitely in the details. It's a matter of choosing details which reveal more about the character, the situation, the conflict. That's what is going to distinguish a sophisticated writer-- ill-chosen details, or none at all, are a Mark of the Amateur (I think we ought to apply for a trademark for that).

I also think that the advanced READER wants more than just a plot. Someone who has read two novels a week for twenty years needs more texture, more interactivity, more continuity, more coherence, than a new reader would need.

Any novel that can be reduced to a few Twitter tweets, well, that's a novel that might appeal more to the new reader than to the Constant Reader.

It's a little complex when it come to marketing, as there's no doubt that many best-sellers are "just the plot, ma'am". Why is that? It's because to make book a best-seller, you need (first option) a very large base of readers, and that usually happens because you've been publishing for many years and have gathered fans with every book (Stephen King, say, who uses plenty of details :). Or (second option) you need to grab the one-book-a-year buyers in great number, the ones who buy the latest novel as a gift for an acquaintance, or need a book to read on the plane and don't have, let's say, the towering TBR (to be read) pile that you and I have. Those readers buy the books that are marketed heavily (and easy to find-- you don't need to go to a bookstore), and because they're newer readers, they don't "parse" the details particularly well, or even notice them, and don't need them. A book with a strong or sharp plot and a fast pace will appeal more to the new reader. Nothing wrong with that... but to reach those readers, to get the level of publisher support required to market to those readers, you have to get an editor to buy your book first, or really, really inspire marketing to write great jacket copy. :)

So I don't know what the route to best-sellerdom might be for any individual author. I just know that most of the books we all love-- and we're Constant Readers, aren't we-- are not "just plot". They're NOVELS. They start with plot, maybe, but they don't end with it. They provide a story that will (we hope) satisfy the newer reader, but characterization and detail and texture and subtext that will add more interest for the sophisticated reader. That's the reader who will buy your next book, not to mention blog about it and recommend it to his/her friends and send you fan emails and suggest that the local library buy it. You don't fascinate and enthrall readers with "just plot". And I don't think you maintain a reader base, book after book, without appealing to the Constant Reader.

However, I'm not naive enough not to have noticed that many publishers have decided that the New Reader is the only one who counts, hence the constant chase for the next trend, the frenetic search for the next (for two years) best-selling writer, the new emphasis on looks and performance in authors (so they can look good on the Today show). I also notice that the industry as a whole is losing the Constant Reader (go figure), and doesn't seem to care much. But there should always be Good Books (any type of book can be Good-- I'm not being elitist here), and there'll always be readers (I hope) who will seek them out. And I hope there'll always be writers who challenge themselves to attain the next level, even if commercial success and best-sellerdom eludes. There will always be a need for story, and "story" is far more than "plot," as Sophocles, Shakespeare, Dickens, and JK Rowling taught us.

Alicia

Beginning, Middle, and Advanced

Last night a friend and I debated about yesterday's post, and she raised some very good points worth sharing here.**

When Alicia and I were first brewing up this blog, we talked quite a lot about how there was a good amount of beginner information available to writers, but that advanced techniques and topics were harder to come by. That material is out there. It can be found. It's just not as prevalent as the other stuff. And so we wanted to include a fair dose of more advanced writing discussion because we saw a need for it.

As this blog evolved, we found ourselves talking frequently about topics on all points of the learning pyramid. For newbies, we've addressed danglers, beats, and the problem of the proboscis. We've hit the vast middle, too, with posts about reversals, backstory, and loads and loads of discussion on verbs. We've touched the peak briefly with ancient Greek theories of drama, reflections on pov in Ulysses, and transitioning to interior monologue when in a subjective pov.

In other words, we try to mix it up a bit. Not all posts will be useful to all people at all stages of their careers. But then, we're not providing one-on-one coaching through this blog, either. Do as the title suggests, and grab bits of the torrent which interest you most.

My friend emailed me with a grave concern about yesterday's post. She was worried that I strayed so deeply into detail that I had overlooked the importance of moving the plot forward. "Who cares about the carpet and the menu? The characters need to do something already." That about sums up her entire concern.

But here's the thing. When you're first starting out, you're learning how to control a plot. You might not know how to move it forward consistently, how to keep tension high, or how to manipulate pacing. You might become entranced with the sheer possibilities in creating entire worlds out of words. You might get seduced by the lure of all that creative energy, a siren's song. and spend so many pages describing wallpaper than you lose the actors on the set.

That's a beginner's problem. When intermediate and advanced writers fall into the detail trap, they do it with a foundational understanding about the importance of plot. And they usually understand that the lovely twenty page description they wrote about the park at the end of Filbert Street was a useful exercise, but it must get cut from the manuscript.

What happens when you're a solid plotter, then, and you're looking for ways to level up? Your manuscripts land in the "almost, but not quite" pile on editors' desks. You get great personal rejection letters with lots of helpful advice. You might have even published a book or two to lukewarm reviews and indifferent sales. You know your plots are solid and your characters are competent. You just want something more. You want to find a way to break out.

That's when you think about Drago and Johnny, core conflicts and resonant detail. Or maybe you need to improve your scene transitions, use jump cuts, strengthen your secondaries, enlarge your reversals, develop your pov -- the list of possibilities is long. The point is that after you master the basics, there are entire oceans of techniques that might help you raise your game.

I started the Johnny post series with three goals: to introduce the concept of core conflicts, to explore ways to leverage core conflicts between characters, and to show ways that detail can tie into core conflicts. These are complex, interrelated topics that I knew would require several posts to explore. We took it in stages, and we covered a lot of ground. I tried to do it in a way that would allow all types of writers to follow along. I think we achieved these goals.

*After* you know what happens in the scene, and *after* you know that the action moves the plot forward, *then* you get to play with core conflicts and resonant detail. These are not the plot. The plot is the plot. (sigh -- did I really just write that sentence? lol) If you liken writing a novel to building a house, first you pour the foundation and frame the walls, and *then* you pick the paint color for the window trim. Do you get to ignore the foundation and walls? No. Of course not. Can you build an entire serviceable house and use only plain white for the paint? Yes. Of course you can. But at some point, you might also think about where your house should be plain and where it can get colorful. The judicious use of detail is what can set your house apart from every other 3-bedroom ranch on the block.

It doesn't hurts to expose newbies to these techniques. They're probably going to want to learn most of it eventually, anyway. Will they understand it all? Will they use it properly? Maybe not, but so what? They've got a long learning curve before they get to publication. There will be much trying and failing along the way. Nothing wrong with that, really, as long as they keep learning.

Keep learning. That's the real message here. Yes, action and plot are important in a foundational sense. But at some point, you have to grow beyond that.


Theresa

** My friend did give me permission to quote her email, but not to name her. I mention this because it lets me reiterate that we avoid treating people as blog fodder. It's worth restating: we usually make up our own examples. Anything we see at work, whether from slush or from interaction with our authors, we use as a springboard to create examples of our own. We think that's better than making examples out of the people we interact with. In some cases, when we pull something from the comments (which you all can see, anyway) or get permission from the source (as in this post), we might use direct statements. But those are exceptions to the general rule.