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Process 1
A Place and Time in My Life
Specific, Concrete Details
Details are important.
Look at our Sherlock Holmes example prose. The detective
is able to piece together the
identity of the criminal from many little details.
Take a word like
"DOG." Now give a more specific kind of dog.
Notice that you could hardly
picture a "DOG," but once you said "poodle" in your
mind, a picture immediately
appeared.
Suppose we take that same "poodle" and stretch him or her a bit.
"An overweight, dirty, gray poodle."
"A sharply clipped, full-sized white poodle."
"A frisky, black poodle puppy."
Each of the above gives you a picture of a specific dog. "DOG" does not.
Keep this in mind as you
envision your audience who are like babies. They
don't have a clue to what you
have seen and heard and they need to told
everything. Give your
readers plenty of sights and sounds. If you tell them
that "Old George had the
funniest way of saying hello," be prepared to give a
direct quotation showing
George saying hello in his own inimitable style. If you
want to share a funny friend,
be sure to show the friend being funny, not just
tell us that this friend is
funny.
If you are dealing with a
scene at work, be sure to look around at the office,
store, or plant and show the
reader what the place looks, sounds, smells like.
If you are dealing with a
story in your home or neighborhood, be sure to
pan your mental
"camera" around to show us what kind of neighborhood it
is first. Are the
people friendly? Do they even know each other?
After you have placed many
details in your paper, put it away for awhile, then
take it out and see where you
could add still more.
If a
"DOG," keep asking yourself, "What makes this "DOG" different
from all other
"DOGS"? And
do this for every person, place, or event in your paper.