The Devil Is In the Details
Motivation, inspiration were not the problem …. The problem, if anything, was precisely the opposite. I had too much to write: too many fine and miserable buildings to construct and streets to name and clock towers to set chiming, too many characters to raise up from the dirt like flowers whose petals I peeled down to the intricate frail organs within, too many terrible genetic and fiduciary secrets to dig up and bury and dig up again, too many divorces to grant, heirs to disinherit, trysts to arrange, letters to misdirect into evil hands …
from Wonder Boys, by Michael Chabon
The joke was that I could write a great chair. You could see the grain of the wood, smell the musty upholstery, feel the springs through the lumpy stuffing. But you didn’t care in the least. Not about the characters, not about the barely existent plot. Themes that seemed perfectly obvious to me, emotions I thought could be symbolized by the stuff in the room or landscape, were absent for the other writers in my critique group.
Thanks to some great teachers and fellow writers, I’ve learned to manage details more effectively. My biggest breakthrough came thanks to Laurel Yourke, a teacher at the Department of Liberal Studies and the Arts at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Continuing Studies, and the facilitator of the novel critique group I’m lucky enough to participate in.
Laurel asserts that as writers we must earn the opportunity to use details. How do we earn details? With momentum, with plot, with elements that drive the reader forward. And when we’ve earned details, the details themselves must be duplicitous. In other words, the details we use must be more than pretty pictures. They have to do double duty, working on the level of the scene and plot, but also contributing to theme or character development.
In addition to being a skilled and thoughtful teacher, Laurel is a poet, and is working on a novel. She has generously agreed to be interviewed for future posts. Coming soon: Laurel’s insights on the most common writing mistakes she sees and what to look for in a critique group.