Being a Better Writer: Detail Direct and Inferred in Short Stories · 5:35pm Jun 5th, 2023
Welcome back, readers! To me!
Well, hopefully. See, this post was written while I was stuck dockside with nothing to do and a borrowed laptop. Could I have written it when I got back? Sure I could have … But I wanted to do a little writing at least while I had the chance. And getting a nice backlog of Being a Better Writer posts going seemed like a good idea.
So really then, I’m almost certainly back by this point (I am; see this post for details). Back in at my desk, and likely hard at work on Axtara – Magic and Mayhem. Which past me, writing this post in the now of the past before casting it ahead to the present of your now, has just spent a bunch of time workshopping and worldbuilding on.
But enough on that topic. Well, almost. Because since the Being a Better Writer topic list is sitting on my desk back in Utah (recall again that I write this from the past and Alaska), today’s topic is one that didn’t come from said list, but rather from some recent writing observations.
In particular, writing observations I made just before leaving on said Alaska trip, when I was wrapping up my submission for the Dog Save the King anthology. Now, it wasn’t something I didn’t know, but rather a conscious decision I made during the writing process that tickled my mind and said “Hey, this needs to be a Being a Better Writer post.”
So, writers, hit the jump, and let’s talk about detail both direct and inferred in your short stories.
I have a favorite example of mine I like to bring up when this topic arises. It was a story only around 800 words long, and it was a fanfiction. The timing of the story in relation to the show it was based on was critical to the reader's understanding of the overall context, but I didn't want to just write it out because, y'know, strict wordcount limitations. I used three different things to highlight this timing: A) The story title, B) a direct quote from the show in question, and C) a visual cue the protagonist noted amidst her thoughts. Individually, none of these things gave the timing away, but when taken together a capable reader with good enough knowledge of the source material could figure it out, especially with all the other hints about the ongoing situation. I thought it was quite clever.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered a lot of people didn't get it. Heck, at least one person admitted to having missed one of the three cues entirely! That was when I learned that there is such a thing as too much subtlety.