Missing Details

I came to the last page of a crime novel, closed it and laid it aside. It had been a fast-paced, satisfying read. As my mind walked through the plot and visualized scenes where the robberies had taken place, I also tried to visualize the robber, but couldn’t. The author had not described him.

For one of the crimes, the protagonist had worn a disguise with brown contact lenses, but the author didn’t say what his natural eye color was. Another crime, another disguise—this time he was an elderly man with a gray-haired wig. Again, the author didn’t say what his real hair color was.

My wife read the novel at the same time. If the police interviewed both of us as witnesses to those crimes, I imagine each of us would give them different descriptions of the perpetrator because most of our details would come from our imaginations.

Readers don’t need highly detailed descriptions to enjoy a story because readers like to participate in the creative process with us. In fact, the more details they supply, the more likely they are to enter “the fictive dream”—the imaginary world that takes us away from our current surroundings.

Media expert Marshall McLuhan categorized some media as “hot” because they supply detailed, multisensory information that leaves nothing to the imagination. Movies are good examples. McLuhan called other media “cool” because they supply sketchy information and we must create the rest with our imaginations. Books are “cool” media. (But you knew that, didn’t you?)

There’s another advantage of providing scant details: It keeps the pace of our narrative moving. If we don’t belabor our description of characters and settings, we create stories that readers truly can’t put down because they’re eager to see what happens next.

Joe Allison writes both fiction and nonfiction, and has been a member of the Indiana chapter of American Christian Fiction Writers since 2010. He lives in Anderson, IN, with his wife Maribeth.

See Something...Say Something

You’ll recognize that slogan from a popular crime prevention campaign, but forget that connection for a moment. Think with me about what it means to see the significance of something and put that significance into words. Too often we’re guilty of passive observation, or, in biblical terms, we “have eyes but do not see” (Jer. 5:21). That leads us to write a meaningless description of it.

Creative coach Eric Maisel offers a good example of this. “One Saturday morning in Paris I step out from the apartment building where I am staying onto the rue Saint Gilles,” he writes. “Across the street is ‘something’—now, how shall I describe that something? I could say ‘on the other side of the street a father and his three children are approaching.’ How little that description would capture of what I feel to be true about those figures! If I wrote such a phrase and left the matter at that,…I would be playing it safe. I would bore you to tears” (A Writer’s Space, 165-66).

Since Maisel is a Jew, he immediately realizes that this is a Jewish family returning home from temple. (“Though I don’t know how I know that,” he admits.) He notices there is no mother in this group—why? They are in a hurry—why? The children are laughing—why? As a writer, he has a choice: He can notice these details and deduce their significance, or not. And if he doesn’t grasp the significance of what he sees, he can’t describe it to us.

“Writing is interpretation,” Maisel notes. “You are obliged to offer yours. If you want to say nothing, offend no one, tell a happy little tale, and otherwise act the innocent, that choice is available to you. Just remember that even then you are saying something and that we are watching” (A Writer’s Space, 169).

Joe Allison writes both fiction and nonfiction, and has been a member of the Indiana chapter of American Christian Fiction Writers since 2010. His most recent book is Hard Times (Warner Press: 2019). He lives in Anderson, IN, with his wife Maribeth.

"The Book Was Better"

Have you ever seen a movie based on a book you loved? You probably left the theater telling your friends, “The book was better.”

Even if the movie featured some of your favorite actors and jaw-dropping special effects, odds are you remembered the book as a more colorful, emotionally engaging version of the story than what you saw on the big screen.

That’s how I felt when I saw Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 version of “The Great Gatsby,” starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. The novel was a real watershed experience of my high-school years. It gave me an immersive experience of the “Roaring Twenties.” But the movie was disappointing. Why?

Best-selling author Jerry Jenkins would say it was because the book had triggered the theater of my mind. It sparked my imagination instead of telling me in detail what happened. My imagination supplied a much more vivid picture of the story than what Hollywood could give me in the theater. This is a key advantage that a book has over a movie.

It’s also a clue to what you and I must achieve in our writing. Instead of giving the reader a detail-laden description of every scene and every character, we need to suggest these things to the reader and allow her to enjoy the fun of imagining it for herself.

“The best description suggests just enough to ignite the reader’s mind,” Jerry says.

So how much is enough? Just enough to point a reader in the direction the characters are going, then gets out of the way. Put your reader in the driver’s seat. Evoke the reader’s feelings about your characters, setting, and time period. The reader will see a somewhat different picture than you do—and that’s OK. The reader now owns the story as much as you do.

Your book is the reader’s ticket to another world, not an illustrated encyclopedia of that world. Just point the way and let your reader paint the scene.

Need That Definite Article?

While I was revising my first novel manuscript, my crit partners complained that its descriptive passages did not engage a reader's senses. Here was a typical passage:

Ruth slid the galvanized pail of potato peelings off the table and carried it to the backyard, where half a dozen Plymouth Rocks were scratching for worms. When she dumped the pail in their midst, the chickens cackled with delight and began tearing into the fresh vegetable skins.

My sensory cues were there all right, but their effect was lifeless. For one thing, I leaned heavily on the definite article, the. (In those 48 words I just quoted, the appears 6 times.) So I began noticing what happens when a writer does away with it.

On BBC-TV's series, "The Secret Life of Books," I heard the narrator read several passages from Laurie Lee's coming-of-age novel, Cider with Rosie, which rarely uses the.  I bought a copy from a used book store and found this was his consistent pattern. Here's how he describes the house where he grew up:

Our house, and our life in it, is something of which I still constantly dream, helplessly bidden, night after night, to return to its tranquility and nightmares; to the heavy shadows of its stone-walled rooms creviced between bank and yew trees, to its boarded ceilings and gaping mattresses, its bloodshot geranium windows, its smells of damp pepper and mushroom growths, its chaos and rule of women.

In that 66-word sentence, he uses the definite article...once! Here's how he describes their kitchen:

That kitchen, worn by our boots and lives, was scruffy, warm and low, whose fuss of furniture seemed never the same but was shuffled around each day. A black grate crackled with coal and beech twigs; towels toasted on the guard; the mantel was littered with fine old china, horse brasses and freak potatoes...

In those 53 words, he uses the definite article 3 times (half as often as I would). Instead of employing that colorless, tasteless, odorless modifer, he utilizes words that awaken our senses.

Strictly speaking, English syntax calls for the definite article on only three occasions:

• The noun you're modifying is specific. 
• The noun you're modifying is not new to the reader.
• The noun you're modifying refers to an entire class.

Look back at my manuscript sample. Using these rules, see if you eliminate at least half of my definite articles. How would you rewrite the passage in a more engaging way without them? If you find yourself overusing the (as I do), ask yourself whether you're just avoiding the use of your imagination.

Come with Me

My wife, Judy, died five months ago and I am learning day by day how to adjust to her absence. As I told a friend at church last Sunday, I feel like a mariner who has crossed the equator: I still have my sextant and compass, but I must learn how to navigate all over again.

In our 41 years of marriage, Judy and I shared life on the most intimate (and, some would say, trivial) levels. One of our favorite pastimes was to go for long drives, just to see what we could discover together. On such a drive last July (with Judy at the wheel), we struck out east from Anderson and chose our turns as we went. We saw Wilbur Wright's birthplace, stopped for a soft-serve ice cream cone in Winchester, and realized just before sundown that we were near the Ohio state line.

All along the way, I shared my memories of growing up on a farm in East Tennessee. I got plenty of memory prompts from the hay fields and cornfields of eastern Indiana that July afternoon! In fact, each of us interrupted my childhood narrative often to comment on what we saw, smelled, and heard as we wended our way toward Ohio. Our running commentary ("Look at the snowy egret beside that pond." "This fresh-cut grass smells like a ripe watermelon," etc.) seared the memory of that drive in my mind. What I miss most about Judy is the opportunity to share those incidental observations of daily life--call them the "trivial" things if you like. I still find myself spontaneously saying things like, "I just heard a sand hill crane. There must be a flock overhead."

I felt depressed yesterday afternoon, wishing I still had a companion to share these rich trivialities of daily life. I wondered, Who could I invite to come with me now?

Immediately, the thought came: My readers. They enjoy yarns of days gone by, as much as Judy enjoyed the story of my life as a farm boy, but they want just as much to experience the sensory details along the way. I don't have to tell them what the details mean with respect to our journey or destination, though the details should have some significance for the story; I can simply call these things to our attention and let their significance unfold.

Vivid description does that. So does authentic dialogue. In fact, everything in a well-told story should sear the memory of it in the reader's mind.

I'm thinking I ought begin every story by saying to the reader (in my imagination if not on paper), "Come with me. Let's see what this world looks like today."

Joe Allison has been a member of the Indiana Chapter of American Christian Fiction Writers since 2010. He lives in Anderson, IN.

Writing Insights from American Sign Language

For 14 years, my wife Judy worked on the staff of Silent Blessings, a Christian ministry to deaf children and their families. She introduced me to American Sign Language (ASL), which many deaf people use to communicate with one another. Only when stating the proper name of a person or place will an ASL person make a rapid spell-out of the individual letters in a word. Everything else is conveyed by gestures that demonstrate the idea or action. For example, here's the ASL sign for "anger":

Click HERE for video.

It looks like an erupting volcano--a rather accurate way to depict anger! A sign can also communicate a more ambiguous idea, such as "America." Here's the ASL sign:

Click HERE for video.

This portrays a circle of log cabins, which would have been typical of early America.




We English speakers say that a hypocrite is someone who "puts down" another person. ASL demonstrates this in its sign for "hypocrite":

Click HERE for video.

We can draw important insights for our writing from ASL. Foremost is the principle, "Show, don't tell." If deaf persons had to spell out every word, their conversations would be slow and tiresome. But signs enable the deaf to convey ideas quickly, with emotion, free from the limitations of any local vernacular. (An ASL-signing deaf person in Germany would use the same sign for "anger" as does one living in the United States.)

If your narrative seems dull, perhaps words are getting in the way! Try demonstrating those ideas with a character's body language, gestures, or actions. Give your readers a sign--in fact, a whole story of them.


Joe Allison has been a member of the Indiana Chapter of ACFW since 2010. He lives in Anderson, Indiana.