Use Telling Details to Connect Description to Character

Image: close-up photo of a miniature antique car in the foreground, with blurred city street in the background.
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Today’s post is by editor and author Joe Ponepinto (@JoePonepinto).


Some editors (like me) will occasionally admit they might decline a submission after reading only a few paragraphs. It’s not that they are mean-spirited, or jaded, or working too quickly to get through the submission queue. Instead, their experience allows them to instantly recognize when writing doesn’t meet their journal’s standards. Often it’s in the details—in the lack of telling details, that is.

For example, very often we begin reading submissions that start with a description of a person or a place. Too often the details offered are flat and generic, describing only superficial aspects. Kind of like reading a police report:

The man in the airport had brown hair and blue eyes, and wore a black suit and shiny shoes. He walked briskly toward the shuttle to the international terminal.

This approach creates distance between the reader and the character because it offers no depth, no insight into the person described, and therefore it encourages the writer to adopt an explanatory tone, one that treats the reader as a passive listener who must be educated, lecture style, about the world of the story. But good fiction creates an illusion of real life. If so, then shouldn’t the details of a story be presented in a way that reflects how we discover the world in our real lives, rather than a classroom?

One main key to compelling, immersive fiction is in how details are conveyed. Dull fiction assumes the reader doesn’t know the basics of a scene—if it takes place at a bar, then that bar must be thoroughly described; if it’s a hospital, everyday details about the hospital must be expressed. Good fiction assumes the reader is familiar enough with bars and hospitals to not have to describe them from scratch—only the details that are important to the characters are conveyed.

Which approach is more organic and more effective? Think about how you encounter the world. What things do you notice and what things do you not? Human beings are evolved to notice what is out of the ordinary. We tend to pay less attention to the things we see on a regular basis. This allows us to move forward more efficiently in our lives—imagine what it would be like if we had to pause and consider what the red, yellow, and green meant on a traffic signal every time we encountered one. But because we have seen these signals many times before we don’t have to think about what they mean.

That’s a simple example, but consider how this applies to fiction. Stories that offer the surface details treat readers as though they don’t know what a traffic signal is for. They tend to describe everything in a scene, even the details that don’t matter:

At the party, Sue stood against the green wall, watching. There was a landscape painting across from her. She watched people choose beers from the blue ice chest and food from the spread on the linen-covered table.

That may be real, but it is not life. Do we need to know that the wall is green and had a painting hung from it, or that the ice chest is blue, or that there is beer and food at a party? What does this tell us about Sue? Not much. The writer needs to connect Sue’s surroundings to her character. Also, the delay created by overdetailed description works against the need of a story to move forward.

Good stories concede the banal and instead offer details that have deeper meaning. The writer considers, “What would the character notice and why?”

Let’s go back to that man in the airport. If you’re in an airport you probably pass hundreds of people on your way to your gate. You can’t notice them all, so what about this man makes him stand out?

The man in the airport seemed to be watching me.

You don’t have to describe his height, weight, hair color, eye color…not until they matter. What matters at the start, and what the character notices, is that he is watching. It’s out of the ordinary. It portends possible danger, or at least something unusual.

And as for Sue:

At the party, Sue found a niche away from the crowd, too shy to talk to anyone. These were not her people. But knowing them could mean a big break in her career.

We no longer know what the room looked like, but we know several important things about Sue. Which will lead to the more interesting story?

This is a concept I first encountered reading James Wood’s How Fiction Works. It’s another way of describing close third person POV, but I like the term “telling detail” because it reminds the writer that the details need to inform us not just about what the character saw, but why they mattered—why they are “telling.” And that leads to character depth, the kinds of characters that populate good fiction. We learn about them subtly, through their reactions—how they act and speak in response to the world around them, and the situations in which they find themselves. If fiction is an illusion of real life, then you have to give your reader both parts—the real and the life. It often makes the difference between a dull story and an engrossing one.

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Caroline

Very useful and good examples. Merci.

Dina Santorelli

This is one of the best posts about descriptive detail that I’ve read. Excellent!

Joe Ponepinto

Thanks, Dina!

Jaya Avendel

As a writer who is looking to improve my writing and up the number of my submissions that are accepted, I loved reading this and getting an idea of one aspect of storytelling I may not be using to full effect! Thank you for sharing.

Ken Hughes

“The bartender sees the crowd, the decorator sees the barstools, and the SEAL takes in the exits.”

Or think of a low-budget documentary. As the camera zeroes in on one thing or another, you can almost hear the director saying “*This* thing is important.”

Showing details equally is not only an impossible slog, it’s missing a huge chance to show how the character lives and looks at the world — even if there’s nothing story-relevant to prioritize yet (and there probably should be).

Debbie Burke

“Human beings are evolved to notice what is out of the ordinary. We tend to pay less attention to the things we see on a regular basis.” 
“What would the character notice and why?”

Great observations, Joe. Thanks for the telling insights into an editor’s brain.

Mel Laytner

With respect, that’s not how Orhan Pamuk did it and he won the Noble Prize. In Snow, the central character, a poet, notices every detail–street signs, the shabbiness of the buildings, the colors of the room decor, a woman’s jewelry, a man’s mustache and, of course, he uses snow itself to convey different moods and nuances better than any Inuit). The trick, the skill, seamlessly integration of the details into the narrative. That green landscape might have worked if instead it added to her sense of isolation, like an Andrew Wyeth painting.

Joe Ponepinto

Your point is well taken. No doubt there are many examples of successful writing in which characters notice every detail. In the case of Snow, I’d suggest that the character, being a poet, would tend to look for meaning in the mundane. I am not a poet, but the ones I know deliberately explore the depths of things most people take for granted in the search for the new. And if that is your fictional character’s approach to life, then having her notice many details would be an accurate portrayal.

The next time I am stuck behind another car at a traffic light that has turned green, before I honk I will consider that the driver may be a poet looking for meaning in the different hues.

Kym

Thoughts on revealing details that are mundane for the character but telling for the reader? For instance, in fantasy fiction, the characters could live in a world that is mundane for them, but is fantastical to the reader. These details may be of interest to the reader due to the novelty of the world or may explain the behaviour of the characters (but be taken for granted by the characters). Should you convey these pieces of information, and if so, how?

Joe Ponepinto

Great question. My best advice would be to not force the details of that world. Let them come organically through your characters’ actions and dialogue as they proceed through the story. There’s usually no need to frontload a ton of details. Too many times I see writers approach a story with the attitude of “They won’t get it. They won’t get it unless I explain everything.” Those are the ones that usually start with a long, dry description and little tension. Give your readers credit for being able to figure things out. If you provide subtle clues to what this world is like, readers will usually be able to create an image of it in their minds. If you do need to convey aspects of this fantasy world that would seem mundane, try to connect the details to the characters. Maybe this world has a purple sky that your protagonist sees every day. But maybe today she stops to appreciate it, much like someone enjoying a sunset.