I’m beginning to understand that most of writing involves choices about where to land between extremes. The issue I’m currently working with in rewrite is the question of how much to tell. It came up because I got widely different comments in writing groups on the lead passage of my first novel:
“So you’re the dumbass.”
The woman plopped into the booth across from Joe Mayfield. The bite of over-easy egg halfway to his mouth dripped a spot of yolk on his pants.
“Pardon me?”
He put down his fork and tried for an offhand smile but knew it came off closer to a rictus.
The woman suppressed a grin and picked up a menu.
Joe had seen her come into the diner, now nearly empty after the breakfast rush. She was tall, not quite stick thin, out of place here in farm country in her cargo shorts, MIT T-shirt and an untamed mop of chestnut hair. Not the thug he’d been watching for since ditching Doughboy back in Orlando.
One writer’s take was: “I want to see more about the place. Sights, sounds, smells. This isn’t real to me.” On the other end of the spectrum: “Why do I need to know what she looks like? And what about Mayfield, your protagonist. Don’t you want to know what he looks like?”
I finally came up with what you see above. Because I’m writing in Joe Mayfield’s point of view, it seemed important to get the description of the woman we will come to know as Weezy. But she’s challenging Joe, and the challenge is what sets the story in motion. So I chose not to spend words to describe the diner. (The scene recurs later in the book, and there is a fuller description there.)
My go-to advice for rewrite is Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King. They helped me answer my question of where to land on the spectrum of more or less description: “When you describe every bit of action down to the last detail you give your readers a clear picture of what’s going on, … you also limit their imagination, and if you supply enough detail, you’ll alienate them in the process. Describing your action too precisely can be as condescending as describing your characters’ emotions. Far better to give your readers some hints and then allow them to fill in the blanks for themselves.” (p. 147)
