In Today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* Levels of Description
* No Writing Yesterday
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
“We can only see and hear a small section of the light and sound spectrums, which means there is much going on around us that we cannot see or hear.” my friend, Tim Weller Story ideas, anyone?
Levels of Description
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Recently a writer, Andrew Schrater, asked the following via email about a short story I wrote:
Does description matter less if it is written from a first person perspective? I read one of your stories, “Instant Replay” and there seems to be a lot of dialogue and action and some telling, but not a lot of description. …I figured writing from a different POV might affect that.
This was a great question.
As I recall, I talked a little about levels of description in Writing Better Fiction, but that was really more about degrees of description based on distance from the POV character: description of the immediate setting (close to the character) as opposed to description of the setting a little farther away or in the distance.
For example, what the character notices on the front porch just after he steps outside vs. the appearance of the yard and maybe the flat tire on the car in the driveway, vs. the cornfield across the road vs. the storm clouds building in the far distance, birds flying patterns in the sky, etc.
To answer Andrew’s question,
I had to refresh my memory. I can barely remember what I wrote yesterday, never mind something I wrote (I thought) several years ago.
So I looked for and found the short story he referenced: “Instant Replay”. If you take a look at the story, you’ll see what Andrew meant by his question.
Given his question, I was surprised to find I’d written that story in March/April of 2025. It was part of (and derived from) the first Sam Granger novel, Blackwell Ops 42.
But as I read over the story, I remembered it and realized what was going on, why the description was so vague, etc.
So here’s what I said in my reply to Andrew, expanded:
You’re right. There’s a lot of quick telling in that story, glossing over details that aren’t important and/or that are common knowledge.
For example, you don’t have to describe a pay phone or a flight attendant who’s telling you to put your seatback forward, or a “throng” of passengers, etc.
But the key is this: Sam was in too big a hurry and too frustrated and distracted by his thoughts to take the time to describe much of the setting.
Any excess description that I, the writer, added would have disrupted the flow of the story. (And any description that comes from the writer instead of the character is excess.)
Most of the quasi-description in that story is in verbs: Sam “ran” or “raced” to this or that, “swiped” his card at the pay phone, etc. All frantic action and frustration leading to eventual joy and calm.
And all of that—the lack of solid description, the glossing-over, and the ‘fast’ action verbs—combines to inform the fast pace of the story.
In slower-paced parts of the novel, where there’s time to take a breath and be calm, there’s probably plenty of description (knowing me, grin).
I also sent Andrew the PDF version of the novel, not necessarily to read the whole thing (it’s around 41,000 words) but so he could compare some of those slower-paced scenes with the scene depicted in the short story.
(If you want it, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com and I’ll send you the novel too, again for comparison. I love writers who want to learn.)
Andrew responded quickly, saying the above “helped a lot,” and I responded with this:
Just try to remember it’s the characters’ story since they’re the ones who are actually living it. So you’re only writing down what happens, and then how the characters react in their actions and dialogue. That really is the key to everything. Everything else takes care of itself, which in turn is why writing fiction can be so much fun.
Then you cycle back (however many times, but always reading strictly for pleasure) to allow the characters to add anything you might have missed.
For me (I’m what Stephen King calls a ‘putter-inner’) that’s usually details I missed (but details the character noticed) as I raced through the writing on the first time through, trying to keep up with the character.
This is maybe an advanced technique if you boil it down to “knowing” when to add more description and when to gloss over less-important details then putting that knowledge into practice.
But as I told Andrew and noted above, if you just remember it’s the characters’ story and that you’re only the recorder, you don’t have to ‘know’ anything. Just trust the characters, write what happens as it happens, and write how the characters react in word and deed. It really is that simple.
Writing into the dark is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.
Oh, and no, Andrew:
Description doesn’t matter ‘less’ (or ‘more’) when you’re writing a first-person (or third-person) POV. Either way you’re only writing what happens and describing whatever the character notices (sees, hears, smells, tastes, or feels, physically or emotionally) about the setting as a scene unfolds.
Hope this helps. Visit Andrew’s Substack at Crusader Press to read some of his fiction and essays.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
How to Mine Early Memories into Children’s Stories Same thing: read with the critical mind, but write with the creative subconscious.
The Numbers
The Journal………………….. 940
Mentorship Words…………….. 200
Total Nonfiction…………………. 1140
Writing of Blackwell Ops 51: Sam Granger | (To Be Determined)
Day 1…… 2807 words. To date………… 2807
Fiction for November……………………… 19868
Fiction for 2025…………………………… 681909
Nonfiction for November.………………… 7080
Nonfiction for 2025………………..……… 246550
2025 consumable words………………… 920890
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 17
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 36
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 121
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 310
Short story collections……………………. 29