Specifics in Writing

In writing there are good writers and bad ones, really there is no in-between. The writer can either take an idea and explain it on paper with the fullest amount of clarity or the writer can misinterpret the ideas meaning on paper. Two scenarios every writer faces, there is virtually no human being that always gets an idea transferred to paper with success. Everyone in their  lifetime will at some point leave some detail out in a sentence and that sentence will then become a boring ambiguous concept that drowns in the weight of a line. It sounds pretty terrible, no one wants to see a good story go down that road and thats why Natalie Goldbergs chapter in Writing Down the Bones, Be Specific, caught my eye.

It's a chapter basically explaining to the audience that the power of specifics can take a story a long way. She states in her opening paragraph that the writer should not tell you what the object is but to show you that object through excessive detail. She explains the example of a fruit, don't just say the piece of fruit on the table. Say, the gorgeously red gala apple is resting on the brown mahogany end table. A much more in depth sentence that can paint a far greater picture in the readers head. Natalie states a good way to accomplish a more descriptive story as a writer is to research plants, animals, food and so one. The more educated a writer is, the more descriptive details they can produce.

This article hit home with me because it's an idea I have struggled with sense I can remember. I can't stress enough how often I used "it" when I wrote, for example I can't find it. I look at that phrase now and I think, man, how could anyone understand what I could be talking about. I most likely couldn't even remember. The good thing is, I understand the power of excessive detail as an evolving writer. The word "it" is now extinct in my vocabulary. I constantly use a thesaurus to seek out an abundance of ways to express thoughts onto paper. Research is a writers best friend. If expressing ideas on paper isn't hard enough, as a writer, you might as well add as many words to your arsenal so that idea can be displayed in a correct fashion and it can transform from an idea into a vibrant portrait.