Weighted Detail
As a writer, you may or may not consider the amount of weight you give the details in your stories. But if it’s not something you’re currently paying attention to, I’m going to explain why you need to, and how to avoid giving weight to a detail or object in your story that shouldn’t have it.
First let me explain what giving weight to a detail means. Details are important for painting the picture of our story. They add color, sound, light, dark, smell, touch — in essence they breathe life into our story. In addition, they can provide subtle cues to the reader on objects that are important to the story line, or will become important later.
The easiest way to demonstrate the weight of an object is through the Chekov’s Gun Principle. To paraphrase, the point of the principle is that if you have a gun make an appearance in your story, at some point, it must go off. A weapon carries a weight without any attention being added to it. The mere mention of it, even if it’s casually seen in a dresser drawer, signifies its importance.
Additionally, weight can be given to an object by the amount of details or the specificity of a detail used to describe the object. Sometimes writers intentionally add weight to an item with the intent to misdirect the reader; however, it’s more common for a writer to weight an item unintentionally.
For example, adding a number can add weight to an item. “At the knock on the door, Clara gathered the 178 tissues from her coffee table and shoved them in the trash.” Just adding that number makes you pay more attention to the tissues. How does she know that? Why are there so many? It’s oddly specific, and if there’s not a reason for her to know how many there are, it draws more attention to the tissues than is necessary. But it could have a purpose too.
“Clara hated crying. She hated crying over her ex-boyfriend even more, so when the tears started rolling down her cheeks she reprimanded herself. Tyler was supposed to come over in an hour and pick up the rest of his belongings, and she didn’t want him to see her crying. So she swore that every tissue she wasted crying over him, she’d add one extra minute to her morning run. And she hated running, more than she hated crying.” Now adding the detail about 178 tissues makes sense, it gives it meaning.
Spending a little extra time describing one object out of a list of objects, will give the reader a cue that that particular object is more significant than the others. On the other hand, you don’t want to waste several paragraphs describing an object that is never mentioned again.
The number of times you mention an object can add weight as well. It can be something mentioned in passing, but if it keeps appearing, the reader is going to start wondering what is so significant about the item. For instance, if I am telling a story where I mention a compass necklace worn by my character Kaitlynn. It may just be a detail provided to help the reader visualize Kaitlynn. But if I’ve mentioned it four times in passing, like “her necklace caught on her jacket, and she had to flip her collar to free it.” And then a few other times, I’m signaling to the reader to pay attention to that necklace because it’s important and will be used later. As a general rule, if an item appears twice it’s a coincidence, if it appears three times pay attention, because it’s important.
Take a look at your manuscript, and see if you’ve spent a considerable amount of time describing an object. Did you add unnecessary weight to the object? Keep in mind that there is a difference between a red herring and giving importance to an insignificant object. One is intentional while the other is not. Don’t add weight where you don’t want it, because for the reader it’s very jarring and will lead to reader dissatisfaction if you built up expectation that you then didn’t meet.
You gave me something to think about with this post. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but I’m definitely guilty of throwing random things into short stories…I go off on tangents and throw in things that might seem important to the reader, but never come up again. Thanks! 🙂
It’s easy to unintentionally add weight to a detail. I noticed it first in my own work while editing, and then I started noticing it while editing other people’s work. It can be jarring to a reader, and after I identified the problem and why it was jarring, I remembered seeing it in published work as well. I was aware that there were things that were frustrating me in novels, I just hadn’t pinpointed the cause. Turns out, this is exactly what it was, the author telling my subconscious that this piece of information was important and then not delivering on the promise.
It’s one of those things that I hope to improve in my own writing, and all the better if other writer’s can take something from it as well.
It’s something I’ll have to look out for in my own writing, but I’ve seen it a few times in other people’s, too. I read a story recently that was brilliant at setting up suspense and intrigue…lots of interesting clues peppered throughout the whole story. And then it just ended without tying up any of the intriguing bits…it was like a treasure hunt with no treasure at the end. Very frustrating.
It makes me laugh to read this today because I have a first draft in which I mention a stasis chamber twice. No, not mention but actually write two different versions (unintentionally) of how the stasis chamber is acquired, and I never use it in the story! I’m aware of the problem, and I’m going to edit it out, but it made me laugh when I discovered I had two versions of a stupid prop!
I know. What is that? I find I’ll repeat something maybe three times in two paragraphs, and when I edit I wonder what in the world I was thinking. It might be part of the process though, where as a writer, you’re trying to feel it out and get the details right, and unintentionally making it more important than it really is, or just flat out being redundant.