Wednesday, April 28, 2010

The Detail Tipping Point

I've been struggling with a chapter this week, totally bogged down with a dinner scene. The problem, I finally realized late today, is that I'm loving a lot of unnecessary details. They're fun, but they don't support anything.

Details are what make a piece of writing interesting. You need details to support character, scene, point of view, theme, and plot, all of which support story. The problem, as I see it, comes about when a writer (this writer) falls in love with the details of a character or a scene or someone's point of view and just spins them, getting deeper and deeper into detail that eventually become all about those details instead of about the story.

I am hoping this will help me move on when I get back to work on Friday.

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