In this video, we look at telling details. Often used to communicate a lot of details while avoiding info dumps or conserving words, telling details are a powerful tool for short story writers and novelists alike.
I end with two examples to show how telling details might work for you. Good luck!
Hello, Jane Cleland here. Can you give some examples of a telling detail?A telling detail is especially important in short fiction, short stories, and flash fiction.
We don’t have the scope to go into lengthy descriptions. A telling detail is a world in a word or a sentence or two. A telling detail sums up an experience, reveals character, or informs some aspect of the story that you need to make sense of it, but you just don’t have the room to go into a long explanation.
Example 1: The Wedding Band
A woman is sitting at a bar having a martini, and a man comes in and sits next to her. He notices that there’s a tan line where a wedding band would normally be worn. We don’t know what that means – maybe she just came from a massage and you take off all your jewelry for a massage, and she’s meeting her husband at the bar in 10 minutes. Maybe she’s recently divorced. Maybe she is interested in some companionship, not her husband. We never know, but that’s an example of a telling detail that gets the reader curious.
Example 2: The Hotel View
A man is in his hotel room, looks out the window, sees the pale winter sun on a pasture and the cows just standing there. We know the season, we know it’s daylight, and we know that we’re in a rural area where there are cows in a pasture – all because he went and looked out the window and saw the cows under a certain light.
Telling details distill it down, and my best advice on how to do that is to ask yourself: What am I trying to express? What am I trying to communicate?
Then distill it down and synthesize it.
I know you can do it.
Best of luck, and I hope you find great strength and solace from reading and writing.
Thank you.
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