Dedicated to an absolutely amazing person. *Wink wink*
Detail, shmetail.
*Disclaimer: Feel free to make a pointless accusation against me about this chapter. I will win any arguments. Unless ... I don't.
Now, firstly I'd like to go off on my usual unrelated talk before getting to the actual point of the chapter.
I haven't updated this (or anything else for the matter) in quite a while, and thus I feel I should say two things-
1) I haven't read FanFiction for months. Maybe it's getting better. I doubt it. (No offence, actually-good-FanFiction writers. If you exist. @Raneko_chan and others. Heehee shameless advertising. And this is one thing not to do. Which is enclose a huge paragraph inside a pair of brackets.)
2) For those who care, I'm actually legitimately busy now. ("You weren't before?" "No comment.")
So wait, you want to know WHY I'm busy?
Some of you may be asking, "What makes detail so important?" If you are, feel free to say that in the comments section below before reading the next paragraph.
SO I CAN LAUGH IN YOUR FACE. HYSTERICALLY.
Man I hope someone actually does that. Laughter is the best medicine, after all <:)
For those who didn't realize it, here's - in one handy-dandy paragraph - what detail actually is:
IT'S PRACTICALLY HALF OF EVERYTHING IN ANY SEMI DECENT OR HALF DECENT OR EVEN WORSE BOOK OR PIECE OF LITERATURE OUT THERE.
There. Now that I've weeded out the idiots, I can actually get to saying something deep about this topic.
As a writer, I'll admit that detail isn't easy. It's always been hard for me to make detail interesting and to build a person or a world.
But as a reader, I can warn about a few basic - and extremely large - problems that need to be taken care of by new authors before they actually start honing their abilities.
1. People who use useless/uninteresting detail and do not portray it interestingly.
Mark walked up to the window. He noticed in his reflection he still had blue eyes, blond hair, and he looked at his blue jeans. They went well with his white t-shirt.
Compare that to this:
Sauntering up to the window, Mark threw an admiring wink at his reflection. After all, why shouldn't he? By all counts, he knew he was a rather attractive guy. His sweaty white shirt let his rippling muscles show through, something that always won the gals. Yes, that's right. Mark was a play'a, and a ...
So, maybe I went a wee bit overboard there, and maybe that play'a part was cliche, but what matters is that the second time was FAR more interesting. I'm not going to say I'm good at this. I will admit that usually I am lacking in detail or interesting detail as a writer, and am working on that. But this is SO easy to avoid. Make detail show someone's personality, not their outward appearance.
2. People who use too much detail.
I'm a teenager. Not a 90-year-old grandfather who has nothing better to do than slog through pages of descriptions all day.
Mark grinned at himself in the mirror, a flash of light showing. He had perfect teeth [Insert paragraph talking about his mouth here]
His arm muscles weren't that big. [Insert many many many things about his arm muscles here]
You get the point. People put in too much information sometimes. Do we really care where his AXE was manufactured? NO. Unless it's relevant.
3. People who skimp.
I starting copying a legit example from someone but decided not to. It's hard to make an example, so I'll just say that you actually need descriptors. Make the reader feel what you feel. :D
Anyway I'm tired and I want to work on the next two chapters. Keep in mind they're actually going to get weird ^_^
