Creative writing - Mike Sanders 2014

Crucial judgments
Dynamic details
You, the writer

Even in the action-adventure genre of writing, some authors (the late Tom Clancy comes to mind) tend to overdo the technical specifications of items such as weaponry—sometimes for pages at a time. Do most readers really care what the size, color, speed, shape, manufacturer, history, trajectory, and payload of a particular missile is when it’s fired from an altitude of 4,800 feet with 10-mile-per-hour crosswinds pressing from the northeast? Generally, no. Most readers would rather know about the damage such a weapon renders or threatens to incur.

If you find that your writing has too many significant details, delete what isn’t absolutely necessary to keep the action going. If you compare Tom Clancy’s earliest books to his later ones, for instance, you find that the pacing is much swifter and works in conjunction with his details in his initial novels. However, once he developed that expectation in readers, people were still willing to purchase his later books, even if they were flooded with long sequences of significant details.

WRITING PROMPT

Think of a place you know well, and employ as many concrete and significant details as you can in describing it. Then go back and delete the ones that seem extraneous or threaten to slow down the overall narrative pacing.

It’s worth reminding yourself that, as in Chapter 2, useful judgments that pertain to details simultaneously accept the work as it is and appreciate what it can be—that is, how it can be improved. This acceptance allows a discerning person to evaluate writing honestly and make effective changes.