 Drama: March 23, 2011 Issue [#4303] |
  Drama
This week: All in the Details Edited by: Jay's debut novel is out now!  
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| This Drama Newsletter is a discussion about injecting tension and meaning to your dramatic writing. |
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Hi everyone! I'm Jay's debut novel is out now! and this month I thought I would take a swing at the Drama Newsletter. A very long time ago, I used to write for this newsletter... and I thought this week I'd take another crack at it.
The past few weeks, I've been doing a lot of reading and studying while I work on a major revamp of a character that I started writing a long time ago. I feel like I know him pretty well-- he and I go way back. It was sort of surprising to me that I found myself struggling to fill in the blanks. All of the minor details were totally absent. It was a little unsettling for me because I was trying to write a story about his past and I suddenly realized that I couldn't place him in it.
Details are important-- this is perhaps a comical understatement. Details make our characters and the details we include in our writing comprise the entirety of what our readers know about the worlds within our stories and poems. It's those memorable details that make the best characters. Readers want to know why characters behave the way that they do-- behavior isn't learned in a vacuum, right? Characters, like people, are a product of their experiences. It's our job as writers to hint at these things and to make sure that our characters ring true to our readers.
I seem to run into a lot of stories that have this problem. It might be related to the relative speed with which the story was written, but that doesn't make it any less problematic. If anything, it's more so. A lot of times, I feel like I am left wanting to know more about a character in a story or a situation in a poem because the details and backgrounds are left infuriatingly vague, which certainly does not help me as a reader to understand. It makes sense not to include every little facet of a character's life in a single story, but it should still be believable that this person *has* a life with facets that are hidden from view. Flat, "two-dimensional" characters are just that-- they have no mystery to them and thus are far less engaging to the reader.
Details are a quintessential part of poetry as well-- I can't tell you the number of times I have read very generic poetry and had the author reply to my review saying that they left out the details so that "more people would relate to it." If anything, with poetry it's the opposite! Specific detail provides a context where the meaning of the poem resides. Without context, all the reader has to go on is vague nuance. (I will refrain from making a comment about greeting cards here, other than to remark that the reason you can never find one that really says exactly what you're feeling is that they are so vague that they lack accuracy of meaning. [that's what I think anyway!]  )
In your travels on the site, keep an eye out for stories that make good use of their details, and don't be afraid to point it out in a review if you think a story could use more detail. In your writing, dust off an older story or poem and give it a once-over with an eye for details specifically-- what details are critical to moving the story or poem forward? What details might need to be added or taken out to best convey the intended message?
Until next time,
Take care and Write on!
~j |
check out this month's dramatic picks!
Try your hand at a contest about characters... don't forget to include memorable details! 
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| This is my first Drama NL so I haven't got any feedback to share just yet... but maybe next time! In the meantime, a question for you: Name a detail about your favorite character in any literary work that makes them really stand out! |
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