Ramblings On The Craft : Is It All In The Details?

 

DISCLAIMER : I consider myself to be a life-long writer but I am still an aspiring author. What’s the difference? Essentially, to me anyway, it means that while I have devoted a great deal of time to my words and my art, the amount of money I have made as a professional writer to date could maybe be used to purchase a nice steak dinner for two. So while I have a deep and devoted passion for writing, I do not claim in any way to be an expert or authority figure. What you will find in these essays represent my personal thoughts and feelings about various issues related to writing. I think that in any endeavor, it is essential to have the mindset that there is always something to learn, something you don’t know. As soon as you start to think that you are an authority on anything (besides how to eat a hot dog or perhaps, spelling your name) there might be a problem. With that in mind, I am fully cognizant and comfortable with the fact that on any and all of these issues, I could be completely wrong.

Put another way, I recognize and admit that I could be full of shit.

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One of the easiest things to lose track of as a writer is what is happening around your characters. I’m talking about not just the dialogue, emotions and conflicts that you put your characters through but the environment through which they are moving. One big subset under the umbrella of description in your writing would be that of technical details. Your characters inevitably use tools of some kind to accomplish their goals, what are those tools? What do they look like? How do they affect the story?

How much is too much? How much isn’t enough? Is it sufficient to say that the character is driving her car? Or do I need to specify that it is a 2016 Honda Accord Hybrid EX-L with the one touch power moon-roof? Is it enough for me to say that the character is holding a pistol? Or do I need to specify that she’s carrying a 1911 traditional two tone SIG Sauer with 25LPI checking and mainspring housing?

I’m going to come clean here and admit that I don’t generally do a ton of research for my stories. And I suppose that some would interpret that as laziness or not being willing to lend an air of credibility to the universe of my stories. But my problem is I think that if you emphasize the research too much, you run the risk of feeling obligated to include all of these things. When you put in all of the time to compile a huge amount of material, it becomes harder and harder to resist the need to shoehorn all of that work into the book somehow. No one wants to think that they have to spend hours upon hours reading through intellectual texts just in order to support maybe a few pages out of the entire book.

And I think that this issue changes quite a bit depending on which genre you are writing in and what the devoted readers of that particular genre are going to expect. If you are writing a historical drama about a barrister in 19th century London, obviously you are going to need to be able to talk the talk somewhat in terms of the life that person would have led as well as some details about their profession. If you are writing a Western, it certainly is going to be more important to understand historically what that lifestyle was like. Procedural detective stories require a whole different mountain of understanding in terms of procedures and criminal behavior.

I suppose it’s possible that I unconsciously choose the subject matter of my writing to be such that there isn’t such a burden in terms of research, but this isn’t necessarily because I’m not willing to do the work. The main issue for me is that I don’t feel like I would ever reach a point where I would feel entirely comfortable that my writing was coming across as legitimate. 

I have suffered from a fair amount of insecurities when it comes to these issues in my writing. Specifically, I often have scenes in my books involving gun play or fighting and I am constantly paranoid about being called out as a phony as I write the scenes in question. Why? Other than one or two incidents of rolling around on the ground in grade school, I’ve never been in a fight. I’ve held a gun before but I’ve never fired one. So am I really a credible person to write content involving those things? I’ve actually considered going to a shooting range just so I can get a feel of the physical experience of shooting a gun.

In the end, I made the decision that going beyond the realm of providing just some basic details often ends up going too far. This is just my personal decision in terms of what feels correct for my writing. I think that the story needs to be what rules the airwaves, as opposed to the props that happen to be used within it. And there will likely be some who will argue that taking the time to provide specific details is important in order to give your story a feel of realism and credibility.

But my question is, credibility for whom?

Let’s say I’m writing a scene involving a shootout between two characters. I spend weeks researching the types of guns they are using, the weight and feel of the weapons in their hands, the physical effect of firing those weapons and what kind of rounds are being used. I research medical journals to find out more about gunshot wounds and the effects they have on the human body and I work extremely hard to present that scene in a way that I think is authentic and real.

The way I see it, most readers are going to fall into two categories. One, they’re the kind of reader who just blurs past all of that detail. They couldn’t care one way or the other and therefore, all of the work and sweat and tears I have shed over that chapter goes right past them. worse than this, the second group would be the ones who really do have knowledge in this particular area. These are the ones that I have no hope of convincing, no matter how much work I do. There’s a reason why they don’t let you do brain surgery after having only read a few textbooks. As complete as research materials can be, it will never be a substitute for real learning and experience. For that second group, I will always stand out as a phony who is trying to trick the readers into believing that I know what I am writing about.

In either scenario, all of my work was wasted time. Either it accomplished nothing, or it succeeded in jarring the reader out of the story, forcing them to focus on details they know to be incorrect. I also think that there is something to be said for giving the reader some room in order to visualize the story for themselves. I think that how we see a story in our heads is greatly affected by our own personalities and experiences and the more, as writers, we try to game that or manipulate it arbitrarily, I think the more likely we are to fail.

In the end, compelling conflict is what drives a story more than anything else. The details are exactly that, details. If they don’t come along with characters who we care about, there isn’t going to be any reason to hang with it as a reader. Realistic details do not make a story more compelling. One of my favorite graphic novels has always been Dark Knight Returns, by Frank Miller. What’s the relevance to this conversation? I have always thought the actual artwork in the book to be kind of shitty. I actually hate the vague, blocky look to everything but I’m willing to overlook that because the story and the writing is so good.

Worry about building your house in the first place. Then you can start picking out paint colors and decorative moldings for the bedroom.