More writing stuff

[ostarella]

Just read through the article posted on the list ( "Briefs Are Not Just Underwear" by Melissa Donovan). I have to say, I wasn't impressed with it. I guess I can see it if one is just writing for a blog, but after reading her original paragraph, and then her "improved" one, I much preferred the original. Much more color and life to it. The second one read more like a newspaper article. Now, that probably sounds strange coming from someone who gripes about unnecessary details, but there's a point where a writer can go too far. There are things we don't need to know - the upholstery, for example, or style of furniture (unless, of course, it has some significance to the story). But knowing if the room is crowded with furniture or barren, or (as in the article) that the old woman has flowers on her porch, paint a picture that lets us "settle in" to the story. If "Old Rose" isn't important enough to the story for the detail in the first paragraph, why describe her as anything other than "the old woman across the street"? Then she, as well as the other people who were supposed to be there, can fade quickly away - right along with the mood we were supposed to pick up on.

Comments

[beckyblack]

I suppose it depends on the pace and tone of the story. If it's a thriller, then you want to get to nip along at a fair pace. If it's a horror story, then you use slower pace and plenty of description to build tension before the zombie hoard appears at the end of that deserted street.

Even if it's not a full on horror story, a suddenly deserted street does have a sense of threat about it. What's happened? Or what's about to happen? There's no need to rush to find out, a good writer can milk that tension and sense of dread for a while with description.

[ostarella.livejournal.com]

It also depends on where in the story this paragraph would occur. If it's the opening paragraph, I would definitely want more description, setting the mood and tone of the story. If it's further along, then brevity might be okay, because you don't want to suddenly throw in a lot of unnecessary details that slow things down. But this just seemed to me to be the sort of paragraph that, as you point out, should be milked. ;-)