Years ago, a sentence in a writing article (the author of which I’ve regrettably forgotten) popped off the page and revolutionized the way I look at fiction. What was that sentence?
“Generality Is the Death of the Novel”
You can easily write passages in which characters pick flowers, pour themselves a drink, or put on some clothes—and, in all likelihood, these general descriptions will get the job done.
But how much more evocative—how much more memorable—when you write that the characters picked dew-wet daffodils, poured a lukewarm cup of Earl Gray tea, or put on a threadbare cardigan?
Just by switching out words and adding a few tiny details, you can move from dull to dazzling.
Apply Specificity to Every Part of Your Story
This is a principle that reaches far beyond basic descriptions. When you force your characters to live in a specific city, a specific neighborhood, a specific house (even if all these places are 100% imaginary), you are refining facets of personality that would never have been visible to readers had you not taken the time to fine tune the setting.
- Give your character a specific occupation, even if his job has nothing to do with the plot.
- Make him live within a definable time frame; don’t let him drift through his days with no thought for what time it might be in his world or what day of the week it is.
- Give him a specific vehicle, not just “a car.”
- Let him have a pet with a name and a personality.
The difference between specific fiction and general fiction is the difference between stories that come to life and stories that lie dead on the page.
When Not to Be Specific
Still, it’s true you can’t be specific about everything in a novel. That much attention to detail would require an excessive word count and more patience than any reader is likely to give you. Readers aren’t going to care if the plant thrown away in the neighbor’s Dumpster is a philodendron—unless the plant is important to the story.
The amount of specificity you expend on any object depends greatly on the size of its role in the story.
That cup of lukewarm tea probably occupies no more than a passing moment with no bearing on the plot itself. As a result, it deserves no more than the five words I gave it in the earlier example. Likewise, the vehicles the main character passes on his way to work in the morning matter not at all and can exist under the general description of “cars whizzing by.”
But when the character’s world is rocked by his mother’s heart attack, sifting every detail of his trauma becomes important if you’re to help readers share the character’s experience.
In large part, fiction is an exercise in capturing details and sharing them with others. If you’re capturing only general details, you aren’t going to be able to offer anything valuable or unique. But if you focus on the specifics, you’ll be able to keep your stories from ever dying under the weight of ambiguity.
Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! What specific details have you included in your story’s most recent scene? Tell me in the comments!
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