Details Details

[LaRascasse]

I've recently been reading Mark Burnell's Stephanie Patrick series (highly recommended for anyone who likes the action spy genre). There's something about his style which I want to emulate, but I want an opinion as to how it will be received.

His stories are set across multiple locales, sometimes a few pages apart. From London to Paris to Hong Kong to Moscow to Brussels to Vienna and even New York City. One thing that stands out in his work compared to others I have read is that the constant name dropping of locations - street names and landmarks. For instance, one part where our femme fatale is escaping a squad of assassins in Paris, a lot of detail goes into mentioning where she is hiding out, which roads she is taking, what are the inhabitants there like.

Personally, I like it as a reader as it gives the setting more depth and detail and richer local feel. However, on the other side of the question - as a writer, I wonder if it's worth it.

Would the average reader like to know if she took avenue de Clichy or is lying low in rue de Rivoli? If she is hiding among the milling crowd of tourists at the Gare du Nord station or recovering from her latest near miss at a filthy apartment opposite the Montmartre under a Swiss passport. The same for everywhere the story is set - be it Zurich, Munich and anywhere else. More than once I have stopped reading to Google the last paragraph and then appreciated the effort he put in.

Other writers in the genre toss in the odd street name or landmark, but this guy has to have a name for every street, a landmark for every building and a brand for every object. So the main villain in the book cannot be an arms dealer in Ukraine. He has a fascinating page long history, replete with name drops of famous cold war figures and his current whereabouts are known down to the colour of his fucking car.

This might be a case of something I enjoy as a reader, but may not be worth pursuing as a writer. For instance, one of my works in progress is set in Naples and if I were to follow Mr Burnell's template, I'd spend more time on Google Maps than actually writing.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[NotWise]

That sounds like a huge amount of work.

You know what we always say here. Write what you want and you'll find readers for it.

That said, I threw quite a few details into "Watch Me!" Some of the comments suggest that the details (and a few other diversions) were too much. Readers looking for erotic content may have lost interest. The score didn't suffer much.

 

[SamScribble]

I think you are asking two questions: Do readers like details? And, as an author, is it worth writing details?

My answer would be yes, it's worth writing details. And I say that because that's the way I tend to write. But also yes, some readers do enjoy details. As a reader recently commented on one of my stories: 'I love that I had to open up Wikipedia and Google Maps to keep up with the story. It’s also a very amusing story, so I was glad to keep up.'

As far as spending more time on Google Maps than actually writing, I cheat. I tend to set my stories mainly in places that I know, and generally know well.

 

[LaRascasse]

As far as spending more time on Google Maps than actually writing, I cheat. I tend to set my stories mainly in places that I know, and generally know well.

I use that cheat for NYC (where most of my stories are set), but I'm getting the urge to write stories set in more exotic locales now.

 

[SimonDoom]

My philosophy about this sort of thing, as both a reader and a writer, is that a little goes a long way. I think of it as the Zen Garden philosophy of writing. You don't need every detail. You don't have to emulate nature. You just need a few artfully placed details to suggest nature. It's true in writing, too. A few well-placed details will set the scene sufficiently. No more is needed.

 

[TadOverdon]

What I think I'm usually looking for in my own writing is just a specific detail or observation that makes a scene or character's behavior come across as more grounded, real and plausible. What too often happens is that I lard paragraphs with irrelevant trivia and unnecessary adjectives that have to be (or ought to be) excised in revision.

 

[KeithD]

I think that providing locale references and a large variety of locales is important, especially in writing spy stories, and I do all of that.

 

[jaF0]

What are your thoughts on this?

I skip by all that hooey.

Maybe if I was writing a novel with the intent of it becoming a script for a blockbuster movie. But for a Lit piece? Nuh-uh.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Light touches, I reckon, unless the detail has a purpose, which it usually doesn't. My street names are picked from the air and are nearly always misdirections, to vague up the city the story is set in.

 

[BarracudaSwordfish]

If I know a place well, I will use real locations.

If I don't, then it becomes entirely fictional.

Except for the Dyson Sphere in the rings of Saturn in 'Beyond All Human Contact." It exists, honestly!

 

[PennameWombat]

My "Mel's Universe" stories take place in a real city that should be recognizable by people who live or grew up there. That said, my 'details' are the distinctive geography and certain social (religious) groups, not street names or neighborhoods or such. I do mention some nearby town names but never the main City, its State or certain social groups. It's simply an affectation I've decided to use. A key event in the series took place in a little park that's up on a mountain 'bench' and overlooks the city, is across the street from a cemetery and next to a school. I described the setting but didn't name any of these but if you know the area you could stand exactly where Mel and Chris stood to watch the fireball roar through the sky. You might not get the fireball though.

For most readers, it seems to be enough detail for them to think it well thought out enough to be a believable place for the stories. I've never had a 'local' comment at me yet though. So maybe I'm wrong or there just aren't any readers from there.

But in some stories, I've gotten quite specific. I had Asha and Tracy visit the UK and I used a number of specific street, pub and landmark names to the point where you could've followed them on Google Maps (with the proviso that the story was set in 1986, so what's now a shopping centre was THEN an abandoned wool processing mill, a key plot point.)

 

[TadOverdon]

Inventing places and having them seem real is a challenge all of its own, if they're to be anything other than generic. In terms of spending more time Googling than writing, I've spent an inordinate amount in the last couple of months searching out history and geography of South Pacific islands for the sake of a couple of lines scattered here and there throughout a long work.

Working up a general idea of the colonial history, population size and distribution, power sources, what kind of aircraft a commercial carrier would use for runs to the place and so on is fun and probably less challenging than resisting the temptation to dump every bit of that into the narrative in expository lumps. LOL

I found out there were whaling schooners in the Pacific with African-American crews in the 19th century. Kinda matters, but probably doesn't need mentioning.

 

[NotWise]

My "Mel's Universe" stories take place in a real city that should be recognizable by people who live or grew up there. That said, my 'details' are the distinctive geography and certain social (religious) groups, not street names or neighborhoods or such. I do mention some nearby town names but never the main City, its State or certain social groups. It's simply an affectation I've decided to use. A key event in the series took place in a little park that's up on a mountain 'bench' and overlooks the city, is across the street from a cemetery and next to a school. I described the setting but didn't name any of these but if you know the area you could stand exactly where Mel and Chris stood to watch the fireball roar through the sky. You might not get the fireball though.

I gave enough detail in the first part of "A Valentine's Day Mess" that someone commented "Sounds like Albuquerque," even though I'd obfuscated all the actual place names. Attentive readers of part 3 could probably identify Las Cruces.

 

[SamScribble]

Light touches, I reckon, unless the detail has a purpose, which it usually doesn't. My street names are picked from the air and are nearly always misdirections, to vague up the city the story is set in.

Aww, EB. Your images are always so convincing. I assumed that they were real. Now you're going to tell me that there is no Santa Claus.

 

[lovecraft68]

I feel too many details put you in a box and leave you wide open for the nit picks as well.

Example I write a lot of fight scenes in my novels, and have a back ground in martial arts myself so I have a good feel for them. But I never go into the detail of what type of training the MC has had or use the some of the flashy terms for certain strikes. I keep it simple to stay with the flow, and not cause speedbumps.

Also to avoid the "well you know," insert nerd snort here-you described a type of strike that's associated with Tai Kwon Do, but you said she took Kenpo and...snorts again.

Keep it simple stupid is good advice when you can get away with it.

 

[Bramblethorn]

My rule of thumb: do the research, but don't flaunt the research. I find it easier to get into the right mindset for writing when I know what my characters' world looks like, but not all of that needs to show up on the page.

That's not to say never show detail. It can be great for establishing setting and character, especially if you're establishing a character as detail-oriented. But too much gets wearying, and if the story depends on readers being familiar with every neighbourhood in Paris, obviously that might limit the readership.

 

[AloneTooLong]

It is all in the details

I love details, just not an overwhelming amount of details. Also, be accurate. I have always lived in Texas. There are authors that mention Texas in their stories/books. Drives me crazy when the details are incorrect (i.e. drive from one side of Texas to the other in six hours!)

 

[KeithD]

drive from one side of Texas to the other in six hours!

If, when I crossed Texas, I could have made it in six hours, I'd have driven it that fast to get through it.

 

[DrHappy]

It’s funny that your example parallels a story mine (“Untrusted”) which is a kind of spy genre that covers various cities. I hate it when stories don’t bother to get easy details correct, and I was determined to get those detail correct in my story. For my story, it seemed like there were LOTS of opportunities to get things wrong, and that several readers would know better. For my research, I used Google Earth to choose specific locations, and I sometimes gave specific locations in the story. I also used this opportunity to check the feasibility of a setting. For example, can you find a business district that might have a coffee shop in or near Moscow that would be a block or two from a large wooded park? Yes, and I name the park, but not a coffee shop. I did this for every location. Google StreetView was very nice for helping to determine how to describe the physical appearance and conditions of old buildings in a certain area. I looked at buildings in an area known to have brothels in Budapest.

I also looked up

• Moscow fashion to determine actual winter clothing that a women would wear in the winter.
• Max and minimum weather temperatures as the character(s) travelled through the late winter and spring season. I needed to make sure that snow one be one of the locations.
• Male-female greetings for each of the locations. Hug? Kiss on the cheek? Kiss on the hand?

For me, the research made it fun and the story more real. I also learned a bit of fun trivia.

 

[JGittes]

I've recently been reading Mark Burnell's Stephanie Patrick series (highly recommended for anyone who likes the action spy genre). There's something about his style which I want to emulate, but I want an opinion as to how it will be received.

. . . . .


This might be a case of something I enjoy as a reader, but may not be worth pursuing as a writer. For instance, one of my works in progress is set in Naples and if I were to follow Mr Burnell's template, I'd spend more time on Google Maps than actually writing.

What are your thoughts on this?

Since it's snowing here in West Sussex, UK, I had to abandon my plans to work in the garden and now have time to contribute. Apologies in advance to KeithD, for length.

I agree with SamScribble and see two separate issues with your question; writing to your reader's expectations and verisimilitude.

Your relatively large library of stories, and their success, should give you an understanding of what your readers on this site enjoy and expect. I like detailed stories and therefore I tend to write detailed stories. (37.5k words describing four hours.) I'm sure that puts off many potential readers, but it also attracts others and I'm satisfied with the balance. My suspicion is that your primary audience appreciates the detail you provide.

The second point is more difficult if you want to expand your settings internationally. I'm an American expat living in the southeast of England. I was very lucky to land a job 15 years ago that offered me international positions. I've lived four years in Luanda, Angola; three years in Oslo, Norway; nearly a year each in Copenhagen, Munich and Beaune; and now six years in the United Kingdom (my wife is German, from Munchen, don't get me started about Brexit.)

Describing a location from research and Google maps is completely different from understanding the local detail as a resident, not to mention, native. I can order my favorite lager in Munich by asking for "Ein Helles." When I do the same thing in Frankfurt, I get a blank stare. When I asked my wfie about this, she told me once you go north of the Weiss-Wurst Equator, it's a completely different world, if not quite language. For more confusion, even within Bavaria, Helles can mean lager, pils or weissbier, all depending on location.

I've noticed that Americans tend to have a Disneyland view of the rest of the world. Different nations or regions are equivalent to the "Lands" at Disneyland in that there are slight architectural and costume differences among the lands, but the cast memebers are all interchangeable. It took four or five years of living abroad to fully divest myself of a similar view.

Last year, just before Covid, I visited Ventura for what turned out to be a family reunion of sorts. One of my cousins talked about her recent, and only, European holiday. She described it as a very long vacation of 16 days which they deliberately limited to only five countries so they would have enough time to really get to know each one. She and her family are very sweet, wonderful people and my wife and I said nothing to her but how wonderful a time they must have had.

None of this is to say that writing detailed but researched, not lived, descriptions is bad. Clive Cussler, Robert Ludlum and Dan Brown all write really wacky shit that seemingly includes loads of local knowledge wrapped in an international pastiche. They are all incredibly successful but my guess is that their target audience is someone like my cousin.

This doesn't only apply to international spy thrillers. I've recently become addicted to the modern romance novels of Robyn Carr. One of them was set in Mill Valley, California. I know Mill Valley pretty well and actually met Jerry Garcia once, at the Strawberry Village Blockbuster looking for laserdiscs. The Mill Valley, and for that matter, the San Francisco, she describes in her book has no relationship to the real Mill Valley, it's just a generic, small town suburb with an exoticly identified name. The audience for this book is people who have never been to Mill Valley, but have read about it elsewhere or seen it on TV or in movies. They've probably never heard of Jerry Garcia (except vaguely as the Cherry Garcia flaovr of Ben and Jerry's ice cream), the Sweetwater Music Hall or David Grisman.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Aww, EB. Your images are always so convincing. I assumed that they were real. Now you're going to tell me that there is no Santa Claus.

I'm always describing a real place, just misleading with my street names and geography. My cities are hybrids of those I have lived in.

Virginia will write you a letter .

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I like details. When done well, it's like going on holiday. Or, if somewhere you know well, a cosy feeling of home - I've been writing some stories based in London recently and got lots of comments about how nice it is to read, because they're really missing central London. I write with details because I like doingnit, and happily write a chase along various streets with Google Maps and Streetview in other tabs.

The peril is getting it wrong if you've gone for detail. If inwtite about somewhere I haven't lived, I try to gloss over enough details that nothing should jar as 'wrong'.

Too many details, especially clothing brands and take-away food brands, smacks of laziness, disposable fiction that will be forgotten soon, and hopes that it will be made into a film.

 

[KeithD]

Depends on the type of story. The OP mentions spy stories. This brand usually leans heavily on atmospherics and international settings. So, more "locating and working the environment" is typically provided in these than for other types of stories. I think atmospherics are important for most stories, though--certainly mine. The trick is being clear, succinct, and envisioning. But that plays in any aspect of writing really--the ability to grab the reader's "oh, yeah, right" with just an adjective or two.

 

[yowser]

As both a reader and a writer, the two questions for me in the 'detail' category are timing and relevance.

Does the detail come at the right point of the story? Illuminate the character's mindset, qualities, explain motivations?

How does the detail push the story forward? A quirky detail can bring a character into 3-D perspective, especially if a 'flaw'. If the story is a first person pov, what the narrator 'notices' can help the reader decide if he/she is reliable.

In any event, too much can overwhelm, not enough leaves a reader groping (or worse.)

 

[LaRascasse]

I like details. When done well, it's like going on holiday. Or, if somewhere you know well, a cosy feeling of home - I've been writing some stories based in London recently and got lots of comments about how nice it is to read, because they're really missing central London. I write with details because I like doingnit, and happily write a chase along various streets with Google Maps and Streetview in other tabs.

The peril is getting it wrong if you've gone for detail. If inwtite about somewhere I haven't lived, I try to gloss over enough details that nothing should jar as 'wrong'.

Too many details, especially clothing brands and take-away food brands, smacks of laziness, disposable fiction that will be forgotten soon, and hopes that it will be made into a film.

This reminds me of the time I was reading Angels and Demons years ago. There was a critical deduction made by Robert Langdon by marking the 3 locations of the murders on a map of Rome and realizing they are 3 points of a cross and the last victim is at the extrapolated 4th point.

Sadly, when I tried mapping it, it didn't form 3 points of a cross. That was probably my turning point with Dan Brown.