{"id":8752,"date":"2021-01-12T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-12T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8752"},"modified":"2021-01-11T20:44:16","modified_gmt":"2021-01-12T01:44:16","slug":"too-much-of-a-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8752","title":{"rendered":"Too Much of a Good Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"scissors,<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

If you read a novel like most people do, you try to picture the people, the scene, and the action as the story progresses, as if you were watching a movie. The details the author provides are, presumably, intended to facilitate not just the visualizing of the action, but your understanding of its importance. So more details are good, right? Not always. Details in and of themselves are not helpful; it\u2019s their significance that matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A point-of-view character\u2019s global state\u2014physical, mental, emotional, and, at times, spiritual–changes as a story progresses. In novels where chapters alternate among different point-of-view characters, their \u201cglobal state\u201d helps readers differentiate among them. Yet, a moment-by-moment inventory of all these factors becomes tiresome. Worse is when authors pause the action in a tense scene or before a big reveal to give a rundown of a character\u2019s feelings. If adequate groundwork has been laid, readers can guess how the character feels, anyway. Constantly interfering with the progress of the action makes readers stop caring\u2014and reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suppose a story provides a minutely detailed description of the appearance and state-of-mind of a man walking to a bus stop. And then suppose he\u2019s hit by the bus and is only a walk-on in the story. Readers who followed the author\u2019s lead and created a precise mental picture of a character they\u2019ll never encounter again are justly annoyed. Still, the man did<\/em> wear a mud-splattered overcoat with a missing button. Out of a lengthy description, those few details might be significant. Perhaps he was an inveterate jaywalker, which might be worth knowing, particularly when the bus driver goes to trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, minimize the details that aren\u2019t relevant to the story, and don\u2019t merely strand readers on an island of facts. Here\u2019s a good example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was thirty-two years old, trim, a tough guy, six foot two, and, essentially, in your face. He was wearing one of his two-dozen identical black Armani suits, with one of this three-dozen identical navy button-downs, with one of his four-dozen thin black ties. . . . As for his hair, it was thick, the blackest black, and slicked-and-greased back like a Jersey guido.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every sentence raises questions. \u201cA tough guy?\u201d \u201cIn your face\u201d\u2014how so? What\u2019s with the weird wardrobe? Is <\/em>he a New Jersey guido? Questions like these keep readers reading. Which is what you want, and they do too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(The excerpt is from William Baer\u2019s entertaining new novel New Jersey Noir: Cape May<\/em>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you read a novel like most people do, you try to picture the people, the scene, and the action as the story progresses, as if you were watching a movie. The details the author provides are, presumably, intended to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Too Much of a Good Thing - When authors pile on too many details, they obscure what's important and can bog down their story. ","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[40,174,29],"tags":[1802,492],"class_list":["post-8752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-first-draft-blog","category-writing","tag-description","tag-writing-tips"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2ha","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8753,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8752\/revisions\/8753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}