narrative "scale": how much detail to give?

[joy_of_cooking]

Sometimes I write in great detail, so that it takes multiple paragraphs to narrate a few seconds:

We're nearly nose to nose. Nose to chin. Hong is a little shorter than me.

She still has one hand in my pocket and one hand in her own pocket. I reach into that pocket for her other hand.

She pulls me closer, a little smile playing at her mouth. My breath fogs the air between us. Something in the back of my head notices that her breath doesn't, but I'm not paying attention to that right now.

She's so close she has to tilt her head up to look at me. Her eyes are mesmerizing. Bottomless black pools. They seem to suck me in.

and sometimes I gloss over a decade in a few sentences:

I stop reading the cryptid forums. I do my best to forget that that world exists. That I live in it. Is it the most mature reaction? No. Does it work? Kind of. I do eventually stop dreaming about the buoy. I even get over her. I get the banquet hall job and I move on.

Years pass. I hop to a different banquet hall, a smaller one in downtown Flushing, but one where I know the sous has a house and a wife and a grandson waiting for him back in Henan province. My bet pays off. I climb the ladder.

My parents come back. With my new pay, we can afford to move to New Jersey. It's an hour by car or two by train, a grueling commute either way, but it means my cousins can use my address to get in-state tuition at Rutgers.

I even meet a girl at work, a normal human girl. Life is, in short, good.

To borrow a term from model railroading, I think of this as the "scale" of my narration. (Let me know if you know the real term.)

I struggle a lot with choosing appropriate scale. Too fine, and scenes drag on. Too coarse, and the story grows flat and dull.

Anyone want to show me some scale choices they've made, and talk me through their thought processes?

 

[AlwaysDancing]

Like a lady’s skirt. Long enough to cover everything. Short enough to be interesting.

Honestly if you keep your words tight and flabby-free, the length of narration will take care of itself.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

I agree it's a difficult balance.
When I have people moving around a room I struggle with how much detail I need. I've learned to trust that my readers will understand that my characters don't stand stock still while talking.

 

[AlwaysDancing]

I agree it's a difficult balance.
When I have people moving around a room I struggle with how much detail I need. I've learned to trust that my readers will understand that my characters don't stand stock still while talking.

I agree it's a difficult balance.
When I have people moving around a room I struggle with how much detail I need. I've learned to trust that my readers will understand that my characters don't stand stock still while talking.

Kind of on this note: I used to use a million different ways to say the word “said.”

But then someone told me my dialogue should convey the emotion. Never should there be a need to write, “…he cried … he yelled … he said while chuckling wryly…”

Similarly, punchy quick tempo dialog might mean you don’t have to write, “he said while pacing the room nervously.”

If action really needs to be specifically conveyed, your writing is stronger if the action comes before the dialog.

He paced the room nervously. “How could she do that to me.”
Is stronger than …

“How could she do that to me,” he said, pacing the room nervously.

I dunno. I haven’t written in a long time but I hope this helps.

 

[MrPixel]

To borrow a term from model railroading, I think of this as the "scale" of my narration. (Let me know if you know the real term.)

"Three-foot rule."

 

[Cali_Love]

Decide what the reader really needs to know and what they don’t.

I don’t want to know what the character puts on their pancakes or the furniture color/arrangement of their living room.

But if you can advance the story without a lot of BS errata, you are a winner.

Just in MHO.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Regarding time passing, when I write I tend to be very firm about having a specific number of clearly delineated scenes in the story which progress at a fairly standard pace. Like in your last example, if I'm skipping ahead a few years, I might start by indicating that it was a few years later, but then build everything that has happened into the next scene as it unfolds (just like I would do with initital back story.)

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I tend to write the good bits in detail, which are the bits I want to write for whatever reason. Then join them together. I reason that if I'm not interested in the detail of getting from scene A to scene B, then my readers won't be, either - but also I'm not paid to write stuff here that I'm not interested in. I've got a fair few joins - often where there's some argument, or sad stuff needed - that get accounted for in a couple lines.

E.g. a mother is put in a nursing home, then loses lucidity. Son observes she may as well be dead. "Six weeks later, that's what happens." No more detail needed. Or a breakup, covered in a few lines of conversation, then one party stumbling out.

I try to put in details when they tell you something about the character "I chuck two Barry's teabags into mugs. It's a taste of home." - shows the narrator is more in touch with his Irish roots than he might admit.

I do seem to write lots of detail about food. Probably because I grew up on Enid Blyton's lavish meal descriptions, but also I like restaurants.

I try not to get too repetitive in sex scenes within one story. Some sex scenes really only need to be one-liners, if that. Especially when you have a novel or a series.

Greatest range in one sentence? "It's actually been my home for millennia, but London's changed again, after my quick ten-year nap." This isn't a human narrator, Toto.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Sometimes I write in great detail, so that it takes multiple paragraphs to narrate a few seconds:



and sometimes I gloss over a decade in a few sentences:



To borrow a term from model railroading, I think of this as the "scale" of my narration. (Let me know if you know the real term.)

I struggle a lot with choosing appropriate scale. Too fine, and scenes drag on. Too coarse, and the story grows flat and dull.

Anyone want to show me some scale choices they've made, and talk me through their thought processes?

Yes, you're using the term "scale" correctly for model railroads. O, HO, N, Z, etc. (Although that's pretty unusual as a analogy for fiction writing.) It's also called "gauge," the distance between the rails. Is that nerdy enough for you?

 

[Tomh1966]

It varies wildly with me depending on my story type. Sometimes on my more detailed stories, I'll have two sequential comments. 1) BORING DETAILS! 2) Not enough details.

 

[gunhilltrain]

"Three-foot rule."

You gave me a chance to go super-nerd. The only place where I've heard of a three-foot gauge is that streetcar in Disneyland. A common "narrow-gauge" used to be three-foot, six inches. I also never heard of the "three-foot rule" when I was young. Must be those millennials, I suppose.

 

[SimonDoom]

I had an HO model railroad layout as a kid, so I know what you're talking about.

The level of appropriate detail is wholly dependent on the story and what you are trying to accomplish.

I've always enjoyed hiking in the mountains, and I'm sensitive to, and appreciative of, mountain scenery. The sensory overload--the sights, sounds, scents, the feel of the wind on my skin--are almost like "scenery porn" for me. Nearly all my backpacking trips have been with my male friends and my sons, but the sensory pleasure for me at times has had an almost erotic quality, and I at times fantasized as I was walking along the trail, taking in all the sights, about what it would be like to be hiking with a beautiful, sexy woman rather than a bunch of sweaty guys. So, in two of my stories, I tried to recapture that sense with my description of the wilderness setting. I wanted to convey the impact that the setting had on my senses, so I resorted to more descriptive detail than I might usually have done. Here's an example:

The twisty trail ducked through a thick stand of firs. The scent of their pitch hit my nostrils. Sara continued walking ahead of me, setting a brisk pace. I sensed her eagerness to get to our destination.

A few more twists and turns on the trail later, the trees parted and there it was: Baskin Lake, sparkling like a sapphire in the stark mountain setting. I'd forgotten just how beautiful it was. The rock cliffs that framed it loomed improbably high and steep above us. Patches of snow fields clung here and there to the steep shoulders of the surrounding peaks. Off to the right, a waterfall borne of snowmelt cascaded a hundred feet over a vertical pitch of rock. Stunted, twisted trees held on to the forbidding mountain slopes where they could.

We scouted for a camp site. It didn't take us long to find an ideal one -- a flat space, set about by rocks and trees, sloping gently down to the lake's edge perhaps a hundred feet away.

In terms of "getting to" the erotic scene, there was no need to describe the scenery with such detail. Some readers, I think, saw it as a detour, and excessive. But for me it was essential, because I wanted to convey the way the scenery could stimulate one's senses to something like an erotic pitch. I wanted to recapture the way I had felt on my many treks through the mountains. Perhaps it was an indulgent example of "Write what you know."

 

[AshCardiff]

The two examples … something intense that benefits from lots of specific detail and close examination vs “time passing” are to my mind the easy ones.

I struggle more with the in-between scenes; where the question “is this necessary to the story” feels like a grey area. Yeah the scene or paragraph provides something; it’s there for a reason. But does it provide enough? Is it a *good* reason?

 

[MrPixel]

You gave me a chance to go super-nerd. The only place where I've heard of a three-foot gauge is that streetcar in Disneyland. A common "narrow-gauge" used to be three-foot, six inches. I also never heard of the "three-foot rule" when I was young. Must be those millennials, I suppose.

"Three foot rule" was a joke since Joy mentioned model railroading. It's a hand-wave in modeler circles alleging that a super-fine detail is a worthless effort if you can't see it from three feet away.

3-1/2' was common to streetcars - the Los Angeles Railway was 3-1/2'. 3' was what you found in the mountains for low-budget RR construction. The legendary narrow-gauge lines in Colorado were all 3' gauge. There's still an active gypsum-hauling RR in the California lower desert that's 3' gauge.

 

[gunhilltrain]

"Three foot rule" was a joke since Joy mentioned model railroading. It's a hand-wave in modeler circles alleging that a super-fine detail is a worthless effort if you can't see it from three feet away.

3-1/2' was common to streetcars - the Los Angeles Railway was 3-1/2'. 3' was what you found in the mountains for low-budget RR construction. The legendary narrow-gauge lines in Colorado were all 3' gauge. There's still an active gypsum-hauling RR in the California lower desert that's 3' gauge.

Oh, I thought you meant this three-foot rule (there are different meanings for it). "A ridiculous rule that girlfriends have for a boyfriend to stand at least 3 feet away from any girl that likes or might like him besides her." I've never heard that one before; perhaps the Urban Dictionary poster just made it up. I've also never heard it in the model railroad context, but that is not a hobby of mine.

 

[SimonDoom]

"Three foot rule" was a joke since Joy mentioned model railroading. It's a hand-wave in modeler circles alleging that a super-fine detail is a worthless effort if you can't see it from three feet away.

We always used dyed lichen for foliage in the HO model trees. If you bother to look at it up close you'll say, "What?" But nobody does, and it works just fine.

 

[burgwad]

Depends on the mood? I keep it organic. I season to flavor.

If characters are in a passive, observant state, then I use descriptions of the world around them to accentuate what’s going on inside their heads. I try to limit myself to details that contribute meaningfully to a sense of time and place, too. But my primary goal is to convey character through what is observed and how.

If characters are in a non-observant state, distracted by or fixated on something, then I typically let the outside world fall away. Later, I bring the character/reader back to reality with a sudden, short observation about their surroundings.

Meanwhile there is all the stuff that is the purely necessary eating-your-vegetables part of scene setting. Basic, story-crucial mise en scene. Geography and/or floor-plan. Any Chekhov’s guns. These I try to grind up and sprinkle in discreetly.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

Yes, you're using the term "scale" correctly for model railroads. O, HO, N, Z, etc. (Although that's pretty unusual as a analogy for fiction writing.) It's also called "gauge," the distance between the rails. Is that nerdy enough for you?

Yeah, I know I'm using the model railroading term correctly, but what would it be called in writing terms?

Although since it appears that the entire population of AH is also model railroading fans, maybe I can just keep calling it scale.

 

[Bazzle]

Top much. I find it easier to "waffle" like that than use the characters talking about what they can see, taste, smell or feel?

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Yeah, I know I'm using the model railroading term correctly, but what would it be called in writing terms?

Although since it appears that the entire population of AH is also model railroading fans, maybe I can just keep calling it scale.

Well, if it's good enough for Sir Rod Stewart...

https://allthatsinteresting.com/rod-stewart-model-trains

 

[Melody_Lightdraft2]

Sometimes I write in great detail, so that it takes multiple paragraphs to narrate a few seconds:



and sometimes I gloss over a decade in a few sentences:



To borrow a term from model railroading, I think of this as the "scale" of my narration. (Let me know if you know the real term.)

I struggle a lot with choosing appropriate scale. Too fine, and scenes drag on. Too coarse, and the story grows flat and dull.

Anyone want to show me some scale choices they've made, and talk me through their thought processes?

What you're describing is, "pacing." It dictates the pace of the story, details slow it down, short punchy action scenes speed it up.
Take this scene:

As a human I loved wolves, although they have a PR problem. Mainly because our species feared them, “Yes brothers Grimm, I’m talking about you.”

My centaur self, at least my hind horse brain, definitely deep down screamed, “RUN.” So it came as a surprise to be in a room full of them, be it shape shifters. My official role was observer, to get a feel of how a squad of Epona’s crack ground troops operated. Naturally it started as soon as I walked into the briefing room, although their hearing would have detected my hoof fall long before I reached the door. On opening it I was greeted with.

“I smell a hay bag.” Laughter followed. Walking through the door I let it close behind me.
“Strange, I smell wet dog.” The laughter died as the owner of joke stood up, his chair hitting the floor with a clatter. The, “d,” word is an insult to werewolves, as well I knew.
“You got a death wish, stallion?”
“Bring it on fur ball, I’ve dealt with Hell hounds, you’re just a puppy still at your bitch’s tit at the side of them.”
Combat werewolves are fast, the change from two legs into a furry four-legged fury almost instantaneous. Their uniform magically spelled to allow the rapid change, I was ready for the leap over the desk. My front hooves glowing electric blue as the potential magic energy built up. What the poor pooch did not expect was the yellow tennis ball flung at him.
“FETCH.”
His body twisted in mid air, jaws wide and teeth snapping. I moved out of the way as his form hit the wall, and before he could recover. “SIT.” The ball dropped from his mouth, the growl impressive in the silence.
“Room Attention.”
While still watching the pony sized wolf, I knew an Officer had just entered.
“What’s going on here?”
Half turning my head, “Just playing with his favorite toy, ma’am.”
She smiled, “I have read your file, you consider yourself a bit of a maverick. Well that stops now, understood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She regarded the wolf, the smile faded. “Troop Leader Curtis, drop the fur and get back to your seat.”
He had no other choice but to comply, but the look I got promised this was not over.

The first paragraph sets the scene, if I wanted to really speed it up, the second paragraph could be removed.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Although since it appears that the entire population of AH is also model railroading fans, maybe I can just keep calling it scale.

I'll have you know I've never owned a model railway in my life.
(OK, I admit I like playing with railways. At 1:1 scale...)

Back on topic, people read Lit stories to pass the time and be entertained. They don't want 'just the facts'. They want to be seduced with the particularly interesting info - just what that is, will vary by reader.

Succinct reports are for work. (Sighs, goes back to editing a report...)

 

[gunhilltrain]

Yeah, I know I'm using the model railroading term correctly, but what would it be called in writing terms?

Although since it appears that the entire population of AH is also model railroading fans, maybe I can just keep calling it scale.

From your original post, you seem to mean a "time scale," I'd guess you'd call it. Beyond that, I don't think there is a specific terminology. It's up to you how much detail to go into.

 

[SimonDoom]

Yeah, I know I'm using the model railroading term correctly, but what would it be called in writing terms?

Although since it appears that the entire population of AH is also model railroading fans, maybe I can just keep calling it scale.

It works OK for me, although I'm not sure 87:1 (if my memory serves me correctly--take that for nerdiness) is as good a scale for smut stories as it is for watching trains run around a plywood board. With stories, I think you want to change the scale as it suits the purposes of the story in the moment.

 

[Cagivagurl]

The answer in my opinion is... There is no one answer. No rule, no plan that works for everyone.
Creators, work in different mediums, using different methods.
Two potters working with clay will produce two very different creations.
There is no formula, no magic elixir. You as a writer, share the medium of all writers... Words...
How you use them, connect them, is your personal style.
Dialogue and narration are part of your tool kit for connecting and explaining a scene you see in your head.

As a reader I know what I look for in a story... Emotions shared and bared. Interesting dialogue... I want to feel what your characters are feeling, joy, sadness, elation.... Allowing the readers to feel while they read is the mark of the great writers....

At the end of the day, if you like it, then all is well with the world. It is after all. Your story.

Cagivagurl