When Your Details Stops the Story

Beginning and novice writers fall prey to this clever little deceiver when they suddenlyrealize that they hadn’t included any details in a scene. They start poppingthem in without thinking about their placement or they rush back during a rewrite and drop them in like they are sprinkling in raindrops. These haphazard detailssmear across the page and take the characters hostage at knife point to completely stop the story. Here’s a scene I see way too often:

Mary jumped out of the car and ran in...