Lacking in Detail

[Michelle Ann]

After five months of notes and scribbles I have finally got to the point where I am ready to start drafting my first story which I hope will have a chance of being something worth reading to people other than myself.

But 4000 words in, I'm thinking something is missing.

Events that I had envisioned being a bit further apart have ended up a bit closer together simply because nothing much happens between to the two events. I want to give an impression of the time passing but without filling my story with unnecessary filler.

Part of me thinks I just shouldn't worry just now and figure out the even tinier, bits in between, details when the big details are in place, but the perfectionist in me just won't let it go.

Any thoughts?

 

[Boneman]

Part of me thinks I just shouldn't worry just now and figure out the even tinier, bits in between, details when the big details are in place, but the perfectionist in me just won't let it go.

Any thoughts?

100% agreement with that. Be a good writer and an even better re-writer.

 

[The Judge]

You're right -- you should just bash ahead with the big things and get the story written as a complete first draft and then come back and deal with anything else such as filling-in bits (as opposed to filler). However, I'm like you and no matter how much I tell myself this is how to go about it, I can't!

One thing I have (sometimes) found effective, though, is to deliberately write out of sequence. So if I know that A, B, C and D have to happen in that order, but B isn't coming, I'll jump ahead to D and get that written, then come back and worry at B a bit more, then go to C, which means D has to be changed to incorporate new ideas, look at B again, then go back to A and fiddle with it, which requires changes to C and D, and then another go at B. It can create problems of its own, and does involve extra work, but it can help.

As for your actual problem, if nothing much happens between the two events, then don't have anything happen. It surely doesn't matter how close the two events are -- the structure of the book is important, but you shouldn't allow the tail to wag the dog, it's the story which comes first and last. How much time passing are you talking about, though? A matter of weeks? If so, couldn't you gloss it with "They spent the next month doing this that and the other" -- all things which have some relevance to the story, obviously. If it's years, eg a hero growing up, then I'd be tempted just to jump from one to another, anyway. Seeing him at 13, 15 and 17 doesn't really do much, unless the episodes again have relevance to what happens in the main plot.

 

[Nik]

I've run into this a lot with 'P for Pleistocene'.

When three of the party are away, gleaning, at the coast, the other four are effectively confined to their cave's gorge. That left me with a major problem. Sure, they can water the garden, check the fish trap and wash their stale sleeping bags, perhaps put a few more stones on the kiln's walls-- All that's a few paragraphs at most. Breakfast and supper are kippers or venison, hence few words there. So, I padded it with lots of dialogue, contrived formulaic chit-chat, rehashed the usual concerns and hypotheses.

I also threw in a nosy bear and an apparently anachronistic Terror Bird to break the monotony...

Wasn't that a staple of 'classic' detective stories ? When the plot stalls, have some-one burst in waving a gun...

 

[Michelle Ann]

Thanks Judge!

I was just chatting to my other half about it and he said much the same, but also pointed out that if I do leave out little fill-in bits then on rewriting I can then integrate hints and what not to allude to later bits of the story.

But I doubt I lose the feeling that something is missing. I'm just used to reading these big epic stories that, on reflection are more a what not to do as oppose to what to do. Not every moment of lives of the characters within the story need to be recorded, I know this but it doesn't make it any less easier to gloss over the moments that aren't as important because to me, as the creator of these characters, every moment is important.

Almost feels silly...

 

[chopper]

famously, Agatha Christie used to come up 10000 words short and so have to kill somebody else....

but, back on track, I agree with TJ. much of my magnum opus (the less said about Tom Selleck the better...) has been written out of sequence. it is an effective tactic.

 

[The Judge]

Not at all silly.

I mentally "write" lots of scenes for my characters which never get written down on the screen, since to me they are important to know, for the insight it gives me into why they are who they are. So I have dozens of events from my female lead's childhood in full detail in my head, all of which are vital, but few (if any) of which will appear as scenes in their own right in any book, but many of which may inform other scenes in the present day, eg in oblique references to her aunt.

I think it's a question of balance. Putting in every little thing is terribly self-indulgent and self-defeating, since it slows up the book. On the other hand, continually jumping from one Big Event to Another is just as bad, since the story then becomes hyper-active and unreadable.

Good luck with it, anyway!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

If you have more than one viewpoint character or set of characters (you don't say whether you do or not), simply alternating between what is happening to different characters at different locations gives the impression that time is passing. After all, time is passing for the readers, and it is easy for them to assume that the one set of characters was keeping busy doing ... something ... while they (the readers) weren't looking.

Otherwise, as The Judge already said, you can sum up long periods of time in a sentence or two. This works best if the sentences aren't too vague, and you include one or two specific details as representative of what the character(s) did during that time. If you do this, readers will generally fill in the rest.

 

[Michelle Ann]

At the point of the story I'm talking about there are only two characters who have actually be introduced and there is only so much I can do with them. I have tried writing an extra scene or so to 'pass' time but it feels too much like filler, but then I suppose that is what it is.

I've relegated these extra scenes to my 'notepad' for now and might reinsert them if I can get them to feel like something more than foam between the gaps.

 

[Brian G Turner]

But I doubt I lose the feeling that something is missing.

That's because there's a part of the story you've not had inspiration about, I should think, and that waiting for it does you no favours.

Move on - a first draft is entirely that, and it's normal to move over and come back to earlier scenes.