Creative writing - Mike Sanders 2014

The power of abstractions
Compelling craft
You, the writer

As demonstrated by studying the uses of the senses in craft, good creative writing relies on detail. Yet that’s not all it depends on.

Description has many types. Abstractions are broad forms of description that provide an overall idea of what’s being described. They should be used sparingly in your writing because they don’t usually paint a strong enough image for readers. They also often rely on telling as opposed to showing.

DEFINITION

Abstractions are condensed, general ideas or concepts in a piece of writing.

Consider, for example, the sentence, “He was nervous as he approached her door.” Notice that instead of actually showing how this fellow feels through action and detail, abstraction simply tells you. Yet it’s still a description, and not always an inappropriate one.

It’s true your writing should mostly contain concrete detail if you want to create vivid images for your readers. However, when you use concrete detail, you draw attention to something. Therefore, you don’t want to use particular detail when describing something of little significance. In those instances, you’re better off using abstractions.

Consider this brief excerpt from the creative nonfiction piece “Coaches”:

Coaches: those curious beings of authority, both of the academic places where they practice their art and yet also, simultaneously, somehow apart from and beyond them. Teachers and professors tend to view them—sometimes rightfully so—as muscle-heads and clods. If they glimpse them at all, it is usually stalking across some field or ducking into an office or locker room. There is perhaps something unsettling, even threatening, in the ability of coaches to cultivate desire and exert power over their charges in a way mere teachers cannot. And if they are winning coaches they are much better known to the community and the world at large than an institution’s finest teachers and deans, even its president. Yes, more profitable to retire to your books and papers, teacher, than ponder the irrational power and influence of a skilled coach.

In this passage, details are neglected in favor of establishing the concept of coaches, as opposed to teachers, in scholastic settings. Later the piece summons specific coaches in great detail, but first it establishes the abstract idea of them for readers who may not be familiar with coaches.