The Cure for Flat Prose: How to Find Details Readers Remember
How Stephen King, Cameron Crow, and Brenda Miller bring a scene to life + 3 exercises to help you do the same!
Hiya, welcome to The Forever Workshop. First time? Read this first » Or back again? Here’s what we’ve got for you today:
A workshop for:
Fiction and nonfiction writers searching for the details that will bring their stories to life.
Your instructor:
Andrea A. Firth, Editor at Brevity Blog and author of Everything Essay.
What you’ll learn
Why Stephen King never lets a character just “grab a beer” — and what he reaches for instead
The sensory trick that drops readers straight into your scene
How to spot the one unique detail that does the work of a whole paragraph
Two exercises to train your eye for what you’ve been walking past
By the end, you’ll have a repeatable way to find details that make readers feel a scene instead of skim past it. The three exercises below are where that starts — and they’re yours to keep.
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Why Do Details Matter So Much
Details are the building blocks of description. The words and bits of information you choose can bring characters, settings, objects, and feelings to life on the page. They create the images readers see in their minds and connect them to the story through their senses and emotions. Details also ground readers by establishing the places and people in the story, distinguishing one character or setting from another, and creating a sense of reality, or in some stories, otherworldliness. Details also support the story’s larger purpose and can serve as meaningful touchstones throughout a piece.
As writers, we often become deeply immersed in our own narratives and stories and can forget that the reader can’t see, sense, or feel what we’ve experienced or imagined. We must continually show them through storytelling, with the action, scenes, and carefully chosen details.
How to Mine for Details
To find the right details for your writing, you need to pay attention, observe closely, and notice what’s happening in the world around you that might otherwise be overlooked or ignored. This takes practice.
Here are two exercises to get you started.
Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of The Forever Workshop.
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