Details in Your Writing

The worth of our writing shines through the details we include. The clearest, most visceral impressions of characters, feelings, action and settings are what make the difference between average writing and writing so good that readers want more—lots more.

Compare these two sentences:

• Tiny beads of moisture slicked Julia's skin, and larger drops fell intermittently from the trees to the sodden carpet of leaves beneath her feet.
• Julia stood under the still-dripping trees after the rain, getting wet. 

The first is taken from the prologue of LEAVE THE GRAVE GREEN by Deborah Crombie. The second makes the same factual statement, without the detail. Tiny beads of moisture slicking Julia's skin, the falling drops being larger and intermittent, the sodden carpet of leaves—what a difference these details make in painting the picture and making it visceral. I especially like the work the active verb, “slicked” does in combination with those “tiny beads of moisture.” I have an impression of how Julia might feel standing there, because I'm there with her. I want to read the next sentences to see if I'm right.

Descriptive detail, like that above, can slow the pace of the story, and you can purposely use it not only to enrich the world you're building on the page, but to create a moment of reflection or a chance to breathe between faster-paced scenes. Pace is an important consideration. Detail can help you control it. But don't leave it out, no matter what pace you want. Even in the fastest-paced genre novels, deftly-used, telling details are what make the difference between a good story and a great one.

A type of detail that doesn't slow the pace can be rendered with strong nouns and verbs (like 'slicked' above) that require little or no other description. This is the type to go for when you want to keep that pace moving:

• Beads of moisture slicked Julia's skin. She spun and slashed at an unseen intruder in the pitch-black room, his heat and breath her guides.  (apologies to Deborah Crombie for stealing Julia and her damp skin)
• We descend a steep alley, slip beneath an archway, skirt some shuttered restaurants. (Anthony Doerr, FOUR SEASONS IN ROME) This is much gentler than the first example, but still powerful and in motion.

How do you raise the level of your writing to this standard? Sentence by sentence, that's how. As a professor of mine was fond of saying when advising us on our writing: "Take that sentence and re-render it, using detail that comes from the character's emotion."  Believe me, I groaned out loud along with others in the class, but we did it, and it worked. As you see in the examples, the details don't have to be the 'she felt x' variety. In fact, you should steer away from that—it usually takes the reader out of the story and flattens the moment. Details are better if they are organic to the context—if they convey a mood or feeling being experienced by the character, without flatly stating it.

Do you have a favorite example of powerful detail? Do you naturally use deft details in your writing, or  like many writers, devote a full revision to improving detail and pace?