What you see is what you get

Now that you’ve begun writing, you have your world and your characters, they’re all there inside your head. You know where they live, what kind of car they might drive, where they work, and so on and so on. All of it is right there waiting to hit the page. 

You see it all and you live it all in perfect detail. You need to get it on the pages so your readers can see it as well, so they can live in the world you’ve created for your characters. 

As writers, we sometimes forget that no one else sees our little fantasy worlds inside our brains. We live in our fantasy worlds so often they become very real to us. Getting them on the page is difficult for us at times. You will begin writing and end up glossing over some of the details because you can see it clearly and you forget that your readers can’t. This could leave them craving more details about the environment your characters live in or even confused about things taking place because they can’t picture the environment around the characters clearly. 

You can tell your readers, 

Janie lived in a cute little apartment with two roommates. They’d lived there two years, since starting college. 

And then move on to the action, but does that tell the readers what they need to know? All they may see is a walk-in closet-sized apartment that she and her two roommates are currently occupying. Is the place actually little or were you being cutsey about the size? At times glossing over details can get you into trouble. Especially if you decide to go into detail later about a feature of the apartment that may not seem to fit in that ‘cute little apartment’. Like a full chef’s kitchen that Janie just loves to cook in! It can change the reader’s perception of that space and can confuse them as well. 

What if we describe the apartment like this instead, 

When she’d begun college two years ago, Janie moved into an apartment near campus with two of her friends. It was small, but at least they weren’t tripping over one another. They shared one bathroom with a minimal amount of battles fought. It would have been nice to have two bathrooms, but they managed all right. At least they each had a room of their own, even if they were only big enough for a bed, a nightstand, and a small dresser, the closets were a decent size though. She settled on the couch, hit play on the DVD remote, and tossed a piece of popcorn at Vanessa when she saw her friend had picked a horror movie yet again for movie night. 

In the second paragraph, you get a bigger view of Janie’s apartment, you also learn a small amount about one of her roommates. Vanessa likes horror movies. 

As you write and describe things, you want to give details through your character’s eyes. Don’t blandly dump information on your readers. 

It was a three-bedroom apartment, with one bathroom. They lived there for two years. It was near campus. 

No one wants to read that sort of description. It’s boring and if that is how your character views their surroundings it makes them boring as well. 

You can also give detail about a character that can later be used to reveal further information. In my book, Sparks Will Fly FBI Agent Brooks repeats a phrase his father often used to say. The phrase provides a bit of information about his father. It might make a reader believe Brooks was attached to his father, which is why he repeats that phrase. But you learn that’s not the case. He goes on to say how true the phrase is because his father hadn’t followed his own advice and ended up hesitating and dying for it. 

This is how that bit in the book reads, 

He who hesitated with his finger on the trigger … gets his fucking head blown off. 

It was a saying his father had been fond of spouting. It was so damn true too. Hesitate to defend yourself and you die. After all, that was exactly what ended up killing his dear old dad. Dumbass hadn’t followed his own advice in the end. Never hesitate with your finger on the trigger, no matter who you’re aiming the gun at, even your goddamn son. Likely to end up with your brains on the wrong side of your skull. His father may have been his inspiration for joining the FBI, but he held no love for the man. It had been more of a competition than a son following in his father’s footsteps. He wanted to beat his old man, plain and simple. The bastard was a hard taskmaster and it made him who he is. A better agent than his father. 

Through Brooks’ eyes, you learn a little about his father, and about why Brooks joined the FBI. It isn’t noble, he doesn’t want to help the world, it was strictly to prove he was better than his father. You also discover that Brooks killed his father. I could have simply stated he shot his father, but it would haven’t the same sort of kick to be stated flat out. 

When you’re writing your first draft, don’t haggle with yourself over details. Glossing over the details can happen, we have all done it. What matters most is getting your ideas onto paper (or into the computer), getting it out of your head. The hell we know as editing is where you begin adding and subtracting the information that’s needed to make the story the best it can be. 

I’ve had the first draft of a book that was minimal, it was written to get the idea out of my head and onto paper. I wasn’t looking to make it perfect or complete, just to get it written before I forgot the story. It started at 40,000 words and after the first edit, it was over 80,000. There was backstory I missed on some of the characters, scenes that needed adding that would give a lot more details about the character and their interactions with one another and allow the readers to get to know them. 

People will tell you, “Write the book, don’t ever go back and edit until you’re finished with the first draft.” 

I understand why people say that because you can get hung up on the details and end up getting stuck rewriting the entire manuscript when you haven’t even completed the story yet. Here’s the thing though, that isn’t always the case for all writers. I’ve gone back and ‘edited’ while still writing. Not a full-on edit, but I’ve gone back and read through things looking for details that could help me get out of a corner I’ve written myself into or to fix a horrible character quick that somehow developed. I feel there are times when going back and reading through things and doing small tweaks here and there can help you refocus on the story and move things forward. It can help you find details you’ve missed that will help improve your story. 

If it’s possible to print out your manuscript to do at least one round of your editing, I suggest doing it. I know it isn’t always possible because printing costs a lot, especially if you have a 500+ page manuscript. The reason I say to print it is simple, sometimes you can spot errors better on paper than on a computer screen. Another good way to pick up errors is by reading things out loud, it forces you to focus on the words that you’re reading. Because the story is yours and you’ve probably read it a million times by the time you get to editing, your brain will skim over words because it knows what the sentences are supposed to say and you’ll miss errors without realizing it. 

You’ll hear conflicting opinions from other authors, some say things should be all show and little tell, or the other way around. I think you need a good balance of both to have a good story. If you have all of one or the other it gets boring. Get your details in there and make them count. Don’t confuse your readers by dumping a truckload of information on them all at one, dole it our in nice little doses throughout things, and keep them hooked and wanting to read.