Alexandra Bogdanovic's Blog: That's life... - Posts Tagged "descriptive-writing"
The devil is in the details
One of the authors groups over on LinkedIn is currently having a very interesting discussion about descriptive writing.
Questions and answers are being bandied about faster than an Olympic ping pong ball as members share their experiences and opinions. Why does descriptive writing come easily to some writers? Why do others struggle? What is the best way to include description in your story? Where is the line between too much description and not enough?
It's a conversation I happily jumped into because of my experiences as a reporter and an author.
As a reporter who excelled at feature writing I swore by the mantra, "put the reader there." So few details escaped notice as I wrote award-winning stories about truck traffic in a quasi-rural Virginia community and a former Long Island firefighter's recollections of 9/11 on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
As an author I swear by the same mantra. But after reading the second draft of Truth Be Told: Adam Becomes Audrey, my editor cautioned me against including too much detail that would distract from my story. Heeding her advice, I deleted a lot of the extraneous details -- but not all of them.
Based on early feedback about my book, it seems some readers feel I didn't remove enough. And that's perfectly OK. In fact, they may even have a valid point.
But the truth is, I deliberately included a lot of minutia and mundane details about our marriage to show that my ex-husband and I were two ordinary people living very ordinary lives until I learned his secret.
Far from detracting from my story, I think the fact that I share details about burning the pancakes one morning, and about a disastrous Thanksgiving meal make the rest of the story even more shocking. One day everything was "normal." Then all of a sudden, it wasn't.
Readers who choose to skim these details in hopes of finding some signs that something was amiss in my marriage before I learned my ex-husband's secret will be disappointed. There weren't any. But that too makes the rest of the story more shocking.
Readers in search of a scandalous, celebrity tell-all type book will also be disappointed. This isn't tabloid fodder. It isn't the basis for a reality TV show. This is a book about real people and real life. And it it can't be more realistic.
Until next time, "That's life..."
Questions and answers are being bandied about faster than an Olympic ping pong ball as members share their experiences and opinions. Why does descriptive writing come easily to some writers? Why do others struggle? What is the best way to include description in your story? Where is the line between too much description and not enough?
It's a conversation I happily jumped into because of my experiences as a reporter and an author.
As a reporter who excelled at feature writing I swore by the mantra, "put the reader there." So few details escaped notice as I wrote award-winning stories about truck traffic in a quasi-rural Virginia community and a former Long Island firefighter's recollections of 9/11 on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
As an author I swear by the same mantra. But after reading the second draft of Truth Be Told: Adam Becomes Audrey, my editor cautioned me against including too much detail that would distract from my story. Heeding her advice, I deleted a lot of the extraneous details -- but not all of them.
Based on early feedback about my book, it seems some readers feel I didn't remove enough. And that's perfectly OK. In fact, they may even have a valid point.
But the truth is, I deliberately included a lot of minutia and mundane details about our marriage to show that my ex-husband and I were two ordinary people living very ordinary lives until I learned his secret.
Far from detracting from my story, I think the fact that I share details about burning the pancakes one morning, and about a disastrous Thanksgiving meal make the rest of the story even more shocking. One day everything was "normal." Then all of a sudden, it wasn't.
Readers who choose to skim these details in hopes of finding some signs that something was amiss in my marriage before I learned my ex-husband's secret will be disappointed. There weren't any. But that too makes the rest of the story more shocking.
Readers in search of a scandalous, celebrity tell-all type book will also be disappointed. This isn't tabloid fodder. It isn't the basis for a reality TV show. This is a book about real people and real life. And it it can't be more realistic.
Until next time, "That's life..."
That's life...
All you may -- or may not -- want to know about my adventures as an author and other stuff.
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