Writing 101: Tips for Choosing the Right Story Details

When it comes to writing compelling fiction, choosing the right details can make all the difference. In this Writing 101 post, we’re looking at how to use purposeful details in your storytelling so each word earns its place and keeps readers engaged.

And this is important because getting the words on paper is the easy part; just throw it all down and take care of the specifics in revision. That’s when things gets dicey, because you’ve got to figure out when more detail is needed, which details to leave in, and which ones to chuck.

I see this problem a lot with first page critiques. There may be a lot of good things going on: the story started in a good place, the protagonist is interesting, an engaging question or two is raised, conflict and tension are evident. But when we don’t get the details right, the story itself isn’t easy to read. Too few details, and the reader isn’t engaged; they’re left feeling confused or disinterested. Too many details, and the reader loses interest because it’s so much effort slogging through the unnecessary content and redundancies.

So how do we separate the wheat from the chaff?

Get Feedback

One of the reasons we don’t know which details to include is because of our perspective. We’re too close to our writing to know if we’ve included too much, too little, or the wrong things altogether. The best way to learn if we’ve got a problem in this area is to let other people read our work.

When your details are too sparse, readers might say something along the lines of…

I was confused.
I couldn’t picture the scene/character/etc.
The writing feels bare.

If you’ve included too much detail, you’ll hear different comments.

There’s a little too much going on.
The passage went on for too long.
There were too many adjectives or adverbs.
I found myself skimming/skipping ahead.
It has a melodramatic feel (because things are being overstated).
It feels a little wordy.

Either way, this feedback is important because it shows you what needs fixing. You’ll need to revisit the passage to either a) trim the details that are cluttering your story, or b) add the details that flesh it out and make it complete.

But how do you know what details to add or subtract? Here are a few tips.

Know the Purpose of Each Passage

Every passage should have a purpose. It might be setting the stage, hinting at a wounding event, characterizing, foreshadowing future conflict, or introducing a red herring that will draw readers down the wrong path. When a scene goes off track, it’s often because the author isn’t clear about what it’s supposed to accomplish.

So when you know a scene needs work, try stating its purpose. If you can’t, figure that out and revise accordingly.

And be wary of a scene that simply exists to convey information to readers. Passages like these are a double-edged sword because nothing much is going on, and they can read as stale or boring. To avoid this, give your passage a secondary purpose.

For instance, if you want to draw a picture of the setting for readers, you could simply write:

At the edge of the bluff stood a house with chipped paint and crooked shutters.

This does the trick; it conveys the setting. But it’s a little blah. What if we chose to also characterize, using the house to represent the person who lives there?

The house stood at the highest point of the bluff, perfectly erect, lording over the pathetic trees. Its newly painted skin glistened. Its windows gleamed, staring unblinkingly at the cloudless sky.

With this description, we have a clear image of what the house looks like, but we’ve also laid the foundation for the character who lives there. We can imagine what they might look like, and their personality, so when they’re introduced later on, the stage has been set. The same is true if the setting is meant to provide some contrast. The reader’s expecting to see someone condescending, fussy, and perfectly-coifed. But when she emerges looking sloppy and insecure, the setting has accomplished its purpose.

Either way, the carefully chosen details keep focus tight. There’s no need to also describe the lawn, or the weather, or the cars in the driveway. Knowing the passage’s purpose helps you choose the details that are necessary, with no extraneous words.

BONUS TIP: If you’re specifically interested in tightening your setting descriptions, we cover this extensively in the Rural and Urban Setting Thesauruses.

Use an Editing Checklist

As with any other problem, the more you practice, the easier it gets. So over time, it becomes easier to recognize in your own writing those places that are a little over- or under-done. One way to do this is with an editing checklist for tricky areas.

I’d love to say we’ve made one for you, but why, when it already exists? Self-Editing for Fiction Writers (affiliate link) is, hands down, the book I recommend most when critiquing. It’s broken down into manageable chapters that each cover a problematic area of writing, and each one ends with a list of questions to help fine-tune your work. Here are a few examples from the book:

Characterization: Look back over a scene or chapter that introduces one or more characters. How much time, if any, have you spent describing the new characters’ character? Are you telling us about particulars that will later show up in dialogue and action?

Translation: Have you chosen the right details (the ones that will characterize as well as describe the physical appearance)? Have you added details that are going to be repeated later (and should be cut here)?

Dialogue: Mark every –ly adverb. How many of them do you have? How many of them are based on adjectives describing an emotion (hysterically, angrily, morosely, and so forth)? You can probably do without most of them, though perhaps not all.

Translation: How many adverbs do you have that aren’t necessary and can be cut?

Breaking Up IS Easy to Do: If one of your scenes seems to drag, try paragraphing a little more often. Or, do you have scenes with no longer paragraphs?

Translation: Sometimes a scene reads as slow or clunky because there’s a problem with the structure rather than the details. Experiment with paragraph length and white space to see if that helps.

This book also has checklists for show-don’t-tell, point of view, voice, and so many other storytelling elements. If you find yourself struggling with knowing how much or what to include in your stories, check it out.

Choose the Right Words

Wordiness is another common result of not choosing the right details—in this case, not choosing the right words. Wordy passages slow the pace because the reader is having to process words that are repetitive or unnecessary. Here are a few questions I find useful for finding and paring down these passages:

• When you read your work aloud, are there places you’re always stumbling over or having to re-read for clarity? Those could probably use some trimming or rephrasing.
• Are there words that can be cut without losing any meaning?
• How many adjectives do you have? Not every noun needs a describer. If an adjective is needed, go for one strong one rather than two or three weak ones.
• Are you describing unnecessary actions—aka, using play-by-play? She walked across the kitchen and dropped her dish in the sink. After pushing up her sleeves, she added some soap, turned on the water, and waited for it to get hot. All those details slow the pace, making the passage too long and fairly boring. Readers know the process for washing dishes; they can fill in the blanks for themselves. To get rid of play-by-play, make a list of unnecessary action and crutch words you tend to overuse: turn, walk, move, pick up, set down, open, close, etc. Not all of them need to go, but many of them will, and getting rid of them will do wonders for your story’s pace.

Choosing the right details is hard for everyone. As you write, keep the suggestions above in mind. They’ll breathe life into your writing by keeping up the pace and making it easy for your readers to breeze right through to the very last page.

Other Posts in This Series

Dialogue Mechanics
Effective Dialogue Techniques
Show-Don’t-Tell, Part 1
Show-Don’t-Tell, Part 2
Semi-Colons & Other Tricky Punctuation Marks
The Trouble with Infodumps
Building Balanced Characters
Finding & Writing Your Character’s Voice
Point of View Basics
Character Arc in a Nutshell
Story Structure Models that Work