Precise and unexpected details, every story needs them, but when you’re writing a rough draft you’re not really thinking about details. You’re just trying to get this story down on paper before it escapes from your imagination. Details are something you look at when editing. Precise and unexpected details pull a reader into a story. They don’t interrupt what’s going on, rather add to it.
For example:
Suddenly I heard something squeak. My heart began to pound in my ears. Someone said, “Don’t turn around.
The words “Suddenly”, “something”, “began” and “someone” pull you out of the story. Here’s a re-write using precise and unexpected details.
A floor board squeaked behind me. I stopped, the beating of my heart loud in my ears. A voice whispered, “Don’t turn around.”
Words such as “floor board”, “loud” “whispered”, are much more precise.
I’m still learning how to create these kind of details. I’m finding it’s a lot harder than it sounds, but a must for a good story.
Here are two clips from Choices. One is from the rough draft where I wasn’t concerned with details. The other is from draft II where I tried to concentrate on giving those precise and unexpected details that bring a story world to life.
Rough Draft
I set off into the trees. It was so quiet, almost unnerving. I had been in forests before, but this one felt different. Older somehow, as if it had seen centuries pass it by and held countless secrets of years long gone. Even the light felt different. Greener, almost magical. I stopped, listening, feeling the air around me. The forest spread out into the distance; huge, foreboding, and mysterious, where was I? A thick carpet of moss stretched under my feet and away into the trees. Sunlight filtered down through the openings in the twisted, spider webbed branches above me. This place, though surrounded by great trunks, felt like some vast hall created by nature.
Draft II
Taking a deep breath I set off into the trees. The forest spread out into the distance, massive tree trunks standing as centennials, guarding whatever lurked in the shadows. I couldn’t hear a sound. Not a bird, or the rustle of leaves. The trees looming over my head leaned it towards me, shutting out the sun. A little light filtered in through the branches, rays of daylight illuminating patches of the forest floor. Leaves lay thick on the ground, piled among the trees and beds of ferns. They were all that was left of countless autumns and forgotten years hidden with the shadow of the woods. The air felt cool on my exposed skin, it smelled of damp earth and decaying vegetation. I hugged myself and shivered. Maybe I wanted my sweatshirt on.
Precise and unexpected details can also be paired with “Show don’t Tell”. Instead of telling the read the forest was old, show them the forest is old with precise details like piles of undisturbed leaves, thick blankets of moss, knotted tree limbs and rotting logs.
It’s a lot of patient typing, but worth it in the end.
