What amount of detail should an author include in a story? Everything likely to be present in the scene, including character backstory and maybe an overview of the general geo-political views of everyone present? Or only the bare minimum? Two men in a seedy bar sitting at a table? Sometimes, it’s a tough call.
I’ll be the first to admit, massive amounts of minute detail in a story makes me want to put the book down and never pick it up again. The number of buttons on Sam’s shirt just doesn’t matter to me if that number isn’t important later in the story. If I’m told – Sam’s pale blue shirt had seven, perfect, pearlescent buttons, spaced at two inch intervals down the front – I think this has to be important. If it turns out not to matter, I’ll start to yawn at every elaborate description that follows. I’m not saying the number of buttons can’t be a significant bit of information – After the fight, Sam had one button left on his shirt. – This detail conveys that the fight was pretty rough on Sam’s clothes and probably him.
The opposite of including too much detail is writing scenes that contain nothing. Sam and Ed are talking and their dialogue is all the author includes in the scene. The reader has no idea where they are, what time of day it is, whether or not they are alone, or where on earth Sam got that pistol he just fired at Ed. When the scene ends, the reader is probably doing a lot of guessing or is completely lost. Were Sam and Ed in a coffee shop? At a playground? Or securing firearms in the ship’s weapon’s locker? Don’t make the reader guess. Show them.
Getting the right amount of detail into your story can be difficult. I find that readers seem to be far more interested in some aspects of a story than I ever thought they would be. Here are some of the things I struggle with as gleaned from beta reader comments – Can you give me more of a feel for what is going on in the hero’s head? I’d like to see the city painted in greatter detail. What does it smell like here? How did the food taste? Show me more about what makes these two characters friends? Or enemies?
Inserting the little details that make your world feel real to the reader is an important consideration when world building. It’s like the porridge Goldilocks was looking for. The mix that is ‘just right’.
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