Stumbling Over Pebbles—The Little Things in Stories

I’m going to write a little scene here, and I want you to tell me what you think about it.

I stopped over to visit Jenny at her home a mile outside of downtown Milwaukee. She and her husband had bought the ten acres of land about four years ago and had built an intimidating little fortress out there among the elms and ashes. Their yard was shaded year round, and it was keeping snow around, though the March temperatures kept suggesting spring any time. Jenny answered the door herself, and only a moment or two after I rang the bell. 

“Kids not here?” I asked as she led me through the marble-floored foyer. Timmy was five, with two big adult chompers up front that made him look like a particularly bright-eyed little rabbit. Jake was eight but tall, the kind of kid whose play style wasn’t much different from high school wrestling practice. 

“Tim is,” she confirmed. “He’s swimming outside by himself. Jake’s at football practice. They have a game this weekend.” 

I’m sure you’re dying to know what the narrator and Jenny are going to discuss! (Joking!) But that’s not why I wrote this exceptionally captivating passage. Instead, I wrote it to highlight how the little things in stories can take the reader out of the narrative, even when those details have nothing to do with the story.

Did you catch any of those little things? Here are the ones I meant to include:

1. Can you find ten acres of wooded land a mere mile out of downtown Milwaukee? It might be more realistic to say they lived in a floating house on the lake!

2. They have elm and ash trees in their yard, and the trees are alive?

3. Timmy is five, and he already has his adult front teeth?

4. Jenny lets Timmy swim alone?

5. Timmy is swimming in the outdoor pool in March with snow still on the ground?

6. Jake has football games in March?

Any one of these can probably be explained away. None is so unrealistic that the reader feels like they’re are in another universe. Jenny isn’t walking upside down in boots affixed to the ceiling. Timmy isn’t clanking around in a full set of armor while riding a giraffe. Jake isn’t practicing jai alai before his tournament in Dubai. All of those details would be too fantastical for the author to even consider them.

But taken together, they suggest a writer who is trying so hard to include “realistic” details that the writer also has forgotten that each of those details has the risk of making the world less believable, not more believable. Consider the swimming choice. Why do we need Timmy off doing something else? Presumably so that we don’t have him bopping into the conversation. But when we have Timmy swimming, we end up asking the reader to form judgments about Jenny (and about the narrator). Even if the weather was beautiful, it is exceptionally irresponsible parent behavior to leave a five year-old in a pool by himself. So either Jenny is irresponsible, ignorant, or wants her child to drown. Or…

Or the writer has focused on providing details that end up making the story less realistic. The reader doesn’t need to know the answer for them to say, “Wait, what?” At that moment, the reader has stopped living in the world of the story and started living in their own head, ready to ask questions and pick away at the tale. The reader has suspended belief, exactly the opposite of what we want to happen.

But what to do? Stories need details, don’t they? How can a writer avoid putting stumbling pebbles in their story? This subject is enough to drive an entire blog, not just one post, and I look forward to revisiting the issue. In general, a few things for writers to consider.

1. Write what you know. This cliched advice helps keep things realistic and helps the writer avoid an extraneous detail that ends up being wrong.

2. Research, research, research. Trying to write about a specific place, time, or set of activities? Then read at least a couple books of factual information about those places, times, or activities.

3. Err on the side of fewer details. In the vignette I wrote above, is there a reason that the home has to be isolated? In a forest, let alone one with elm and ash trees? That they need a pool? That they kids can’t be home, or can’t be somewhere else like a friend’s house? It’s easy to add in details later if a reader or editor says the descriptions are a little sparse.

4. Apple the principle of Chekhov’s Gun to all details. When you include a detail, make sure it is something needed for later in the story. For example, include the kid by himself in the pool because his drowning is central to the plot. Or include the elm and ash trees because the story is about all those trees dying. If a detail seems off in the moment, make it matter later.

5. And most importantly, have a little humbleness with your world creation. Don’t assume you know something. Look it up instead! There’s a solution to every issue, and you can find a detail that works with the story without flummoxing and frustrating the reader.

Are there any moments in books you’ve read where a little detail took you out of the story? Ever included an extraneous detail in your own work that caught flack later on? Share your thoughts in the comments!