Please welcome Nancy E. Johnson to Writer Unboxed today! Nancy was not only a finalist for the Women’s Fiction Writer’s Association Rising Star Award (2016), she was dubbed a winner in the Writer’s Digest “Dear Lucky Agent” contest!
More about Nancy:
Nancy is a senior communications leader with an Emmy-nominated, award-winning television journalism background. She contributed to O, the Oprah Magazine which published her personal essay in the November 2015 issue. When she’s not reading, writing or pontificating about politics, she’s running and eating chocolate, sometimes at the same time. A Chicago native, Nancy serves as secretary for Mystery Writers of America Midwest Chapter, and is currently querying agents with her first novel and writing her second. You can find her on Twitter at @NancyJAuthor.
We’re so pleased Nancy is with us today to explore the gateway into fiction that is descriptive detail. Enjoy!
Your Story Lives in the Details
We’ve all received pleas in our inboxes or in the mail to donate money to feed hungry children in remote parts of the world. What do you remember most? What touched your heart? Chances are it wasn’t the fancy charts with data points about childhood hunger. That’s why these relief organizations include a photo and a brief story about one child you can help. You learn details about that child’s favorite foods, games, quirks, life challenges, and community – details that transform him from a statistic to a real person worthy of your emotional and financial investment.
Our novels come alive for readers when we delve as deeply as we can in specificity. I’ve beta read manuscripts about children dying of cancer, marriages falling apart, and police officers narrowly escaping death in shootouts with suspects. Those are all dramatic, emotional scenarios that should grip me and hold me for 300 pages. I know the authors wanted me to care about these people and their journeys, but I didn’t. The writers created generic scenes and characters that fell flat on the page. You should be able to identify your protagonist in a lineup because the details about her are so precise and unique that this book could be about no other woman.
Books that get the details about scene and character right hook us immediately and it often happens right away in that first chapter. Let’s examine a few of my favorite novels that grabbed me early on with vivid details and didn’t let go until long after I’d read the last page.
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
From the very first line, we learn so much about two of the main characters.
When Sean Devine and Jimmy Marcus were kids, their fathers worked together at the Coleman Candy plant and carried the stench of warm chocolate back home with them. It became a permanent character of their clothes, the beds they slept in, the vinyl backs of their car seats. Sean’s kitchen smelled like a Fudgsicle, his bathroom like a Coleman Chew-Chew bar. By the time they were eleven, Sean and Jimmy had developed a hatred of sweets so total they took their coffee black for the rest of their lives and never ate dessert.
In those opening sentences, Lehane introduces us to these two boys by sharing telling details about their fathers. Remember though that the details you reveal shouldn’t be arbitrary ones just to check the box. Here, the details about the stench of chocolate from the plant indicate that these are working class people and we get the hint here that Sean and Jimmy will try to escape something from their childhoods but won’t be able to outrun it.
Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
In the first chapter, we meet Jende Jonga, a man from Cameroon who is preparing to interview for a job as a chauffeur for a wealthy American executive at Lehman Brothers.
Alone in the elevator to the twenty-eighth floor, he inspected his fingernails (no dirt, thankfully). He adjusted his clip-on tie using the security mirror above his head; reexamined his teeth and found no remnants of the fried ripe plantains and beans he’d eaten for breakfast. He cleared his throat and wiped off whatever saliva had crusted on the sides of his lips.
Because of the details Mbue gives us, I can feel Jende’s anxiety as well as his intense desire to make a good impression in that interview. She went beyond the usual descriptions of someone’s heart racing or him tapping his feet in anticipation. Also, the mention of plantains and beans in his teeth is a brilliant detail about Jende’s West African roots that sets up the struggle he’ll have with identity in America.
Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson
We tried to hold on. We played double Dutch and jacks. We chased the ice cream truck down the block, waving our change-filled fists. We frog-jumped over tree stumps, pulled each other into gushing fire hydrants, learned to dance the Loose Booty to Sly and the Family Stone, hustled to Van McCoy. We bought t-shirts with our names and zodiac signs in iron-on letters.
Those are details of the childhood unique to the four girls in this novel yet they’re universal enough for all of us to feel nostalgic and wistful about our years growing up. Woodson does a masterful job of telling this coming of age story of girls desperately trying to hold on to their innocence, even going so far as to have their names and signs emblazoned on their chests. Alas, we know that she’ll show us later in the novel how the world stripped those girls of some of that innocence.
Every detail in your novel should deepen characterization and reveal something meaningful in your story. Don’t waste those words. Choose them carefully and they will help your readers connect with the characters and their journey in the book.
How have you used specific details in your novels to make your characters come alive on the page? What challenges did you encounter? Have you read any books lately that offered vivid, relevant, memorable details that made the story unforgettable?
About Nancy Johnson
Nancy Johnson writes at the intersection of race and class. Her debut novel, THE KINDEST LIE, is forthcoming in 2021 from William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins. This is the story of an unlikely connection between a black woman searching for the son she never knew and a poor, 11-year-old white boy who finds himself adrift in a dying Indiana factory town. THE KINDEST LIE was named runner-up for the 2018 James Jones First Novel Fellowship Award. Nancy’s work has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine and has received support from the Hurston/Wright Foundation, Tin House Summer Novel Workshop, and Kimbilio Fiction. As a television journalist, Nancy received Emmy nominations and multiple writing and reporting awards from the Associated Press and the Society of Professional Journalists. When Nancy’s not writing, you can often find her exploring bookstores, festivals, and restaurants in her hometown of Chicago. Nancy is represented by Danielle Bukowski at Sterling Lord Literistic.
Nancy– What makes your post engaging and useful are the specifics you offer to illustrate your thesis: that unique details are what distinguish the best writing. In other words, you practice what you preach.
In the opening of my soon-to-be re-released novel, Just Bill, I want to deliver on the cover art, which features a dog. Here’s how the story starts:
Returned to the animal shelter, he resumes a life of sordid, empty days. Dogs come and go. Filling the hours, a welter of sensory overload gives way to boredom. Harsh Florida sun hangs all day in front of his crate; at night shards of lightning stab down through the skylight. Being brought back this way and again confined, he has trouble eating. In four days he loses two pounds.
If the reader is a “dog person,” I think these specifics from the point of view of a dog in a crate, in a shelter will lead her to want to know more. And I think the pacing of short sentences contributes to the specifics. Thanks for your post. The details a writer chooses are for me the essence of creativity.
Barry, thanks for sharing that excerpt of your novel from the perspective of the dog. We see what he sees which is important for the reader. Also, I like the closing statement of your post about the details a writer “chooses.” As authors we choose which details to share and hopefully the details we choose are ones that deepen characterization and advance the story in a meaningful way.
I was thinking about this while reading on a recent lengthy flight. A friend had recommended Tell the Wolves I’m Home, by Carol Rifka Brunt. I started it at takeoff, and was over halfway through by wheels down. I was so easily swept up in it. Here’s the opening (by which I was instantly hooked):
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My sister, Greta, and I were having our portrait painted by our uncle Finn that afternoon because he knew he was dying. This was after I understood that I wasn’t going to grow up and move into his apartment and live there with him for the rest of my life. After I stopped believing that the AIDS thing was all some kind of big mistake. When he first asked, my mother said no. She said there was something macabre about it. When she thought of the two of us sitting in Finn’s apartment with its huge windows and the scent of lavender and orange, when she thought of him looking at us like it might be the last time he would see us, she couldn’t bear it. And, she said, it was a long drive from northern Westchester all the way into Manhattan. She crossed her arms over her chest, looked right into Finn’s bird-blue eyes, and told him it was just hard to find the time these days.
“Tell me about it,” he said.
That’s what broke her.
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Brunt weaves in such choice details—here in the opening and throughout—but only uses those that serve the story as needed in progress. The book is a moving read and an excellent lesson, all in one. Thanks for the additional lessons and the inspiration, Nancy.
Vaughn, what a beautiful opening to a story about love and grief. I appreciated the sensory details in that opening passage. Thanks so much for sharing it! Now I’ll add Tell the Wolves I’m Home to my reading list.
Nancy, specifics, specifics, specifics! It’s a hard lesson for me to learn and this was wonderful instruction. Thank you!
Densie, specificity is so important and I think it comes when we get inside our characters. I don’t always get the details right in my first drafts either. However, after I get to know the characters and the story I want to tell, I begin to sculpt and shade with specifics. It also helps to be a keen observer of people. Thanks for commenting.
Great post, Nancy. I could do more of this myself. I’m not usually one to do much character description. I’ve always loved this example from John Cheever’s short story, “An Educated American Woman,” introducing his main character, Jill Chidchester Madison:
Her light-brown hair, at the time of which I’m writing, was dressed simply and in a way that recalled precisely how she had looked in boarding school twenty years before. Boarding school may have shaded her taste in clothing; that and the fact she had a small front and was one of those women who took this deprivation as if it was something more than the loss of a leg. Considering her comprehensive view of life, it seemed strange that such a thing should have bothered her, but it bothered her terribly.
What a revealing passage, Kathryn. I want to get to know Jill Chidchester Madison. It’s interesting how the smallest details reveal so much about who a character is now and what in her past shaped her. Thanks for sharing!
A great post, Nancy. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what makes a story crawl inside us and come alive. Specificity is such a perfect word choice, and the examples you chose are wonderful. Nothing generic, yet each was relatable, and so very human. Most of all, I loved how each made me feel. I responded. And I wanted to read more. Thanks for the terrific nudge this morning.
Deb, I love that image of “crawling inside.” As writers, we crawl inside our characters to understand the details of who they are. Then, when we present that specificity on the page, the story crawls inside our readers which you stated so aptly.
And yes, it’s all about how a story makes you feel. Usually, those specifics help you identify with something universal that you’ve also experienced. That’s what makes us connect on an emotional and visceral level.
Just yesterday, in one of the last chapters of my novel, I was describing a young adult girl coming into the mansion she’s been working in, to retrieve something from her desk. She hears voices and realizes her employer has company in the living room. I had her stop and check her hair in the hallway mirror before interrupting the conversation. Now, reading your column, it reminds me of your example above of Jende – I didn’t consciously add the detail so much as visualize what this girl would do in the circumstances. I guess that’s what they mean by “getting inside the character”. Now to go back and look for other opportunities to do the same. Thanks for the insights and also congrats on the WFWA honor.
That’s a great example, Maggie. The small detail you included of having the young woman check her hair reveals that she’s anxious to impress or that she may feel self-conscious in the presence of her employer and his/her guests. You may consider including more details that reveal gaps in social class or ways that her youthfulness stands in contrast to the older people in the living room. All of those specifics can tell us who she is, where she comes from, what she wants and needs, and much more.
Thanks for the comment and the kudos!
Great post! I love the examples you’ve used, especially Behold the Dreamers which is such a wonderful book with such vivid characters. So much has happened in my life since I read it and yet I still remember that couple in a visceral way, their breathless desperation, their struggles, their disappointment, as if they were people I’d actually met (which, in a way, I did :). And all through details! I also love how Janet Burroway has phrased this point of detail beyond simply description – “If specificity as well as concreteness is crucial to vivid writing, so too is the significance carried in those concrete details; the ideas or qualities that they suggest; the way they reveal character… lead us to think and feel. A list of physical details without such hints will not move us: The lawn is green….. We want to have our intellects and emotions also directed towards the meaning of the details.” (from Imaginative Writing). For me, the more I can let go and sink into my character, the more these sorts of details present themselves. When I get out of my own way (which regular practice of course enables you to do more and more) they come to life on the page.
Lauren, thanks for sharing this. Janet Burroway stated the importance of concrete details with such eloquence as always. That’s an important distinction to make. Meaningless details do little if anything to help us understand or emotionally connect with characters. We must choose the right details that unlock meaning.
Brilliant, Nancy. Thank you for those examples and for the reminder to dig into the details.
Thanks, Normandie! I’m glad you found the examples helpful.
Nancy, this is a great article. Thank you for exploring this! Your examples do a wonderful job pinning me into the scene and into the character. It’s amazing what a handful of unique details can do to paint a vivid moment. I agree about the value of carefully choosing each word.
I’m glad the article resonated with you, Krista. When I pick up a novel in the bookstore, I often read the first few pages. When the details hook me right away, I know I want to follow that character’s journey all the way. Thanks again!
Nancy! Thrilled to see you writing for WU! A star ever rising.
I love surprising, unique, well-placed details. I don’t know how conscious I’ve been of them (in any consistent manner) in my own writing, but I will be extra vigilant now.
I remember when you read for us a couple years ago at the WFWA retreat that your writing was rife with such details, and it made me love your reading all the more because it sucked me in.
Hi, Erin! I know what you mean. I’m not always conscious of unique details either when I’m writing but as I revisit pages I often see where I need to deepen characterization.
You’ve been a source of encouragement and an inspiration for me from day one. Thank you!
Thank you for a wonderful essay with great examples. God (and the devil) are indeed in the details. I was looking at a picture book recently, Great Joy by Kate diCamilo with illustrations by Bagram Ibatouilline, and noticed that the mother, who at first seems like an antagonist is actually struggling to be brave while her husband is gone. This isn’t in the text, which is spare and perfect, but in the luminous illustrations. I could sit for hours poring over the details of this book. I hold my breath at “the world was quiet” and tears fall when I turn the page. This is the best Christmas book ever. This is the kind of book I ache to write.
Congratulations on your win!!!
Vijaya, thank you for sharing. What a great reminder that meaningful details can be found in illustrations and images as well as the narrative. When they complement each other, it’s magic. Also, when the narrative is spare, the writer has to be so careful about the details she chooses to share. We pay even more attention because we know those details are significant. Thanks again.
Hi Nancy, love seeing you here. Your examples stimulate and instruct at the same time. I have struggled with “the details” and your examples reveal that hair and eye color don’t say much about character, but his or her relationship to the world does. In this excerpt from my WIP I attempt to bring that onto the page. Thanks again for your essay. “She had, found purpose in staying in a place where she was raised, lived and worked, its edges both hard and soft—the rattle of the “L” train, the honking of busses along the neighborhood strip, the caw caw cawing of glistening crows whose bodies began to form dark clouds in the flowering crab trees. She on some cusp, too old to believe flapping sheets on a line or precisely mowed lawns were eternal, yet too young to see only creeping shadows, despite babies dying and husbands desiring a siren song. Solid reality was here, block after block, street after street, the houses as familiar as the lines on her palms.
Beth, it’s great to be here. Thanks so much for sharing an excerpt from your WIP. Very nice sensory details that your character notices in her environment. I can tell that she’s on the cusp of some change in her life and she’s feeling somewhat wistful. There’s also a sense of conflict between what has been comfortable and familiar in the past and the new reality she faces. You’re right about the need to move beyond hair and eye color to details that reveal how our characters see the world and even themselves. Thanks again!
I found this a really hard skill to learn, and it doesn’t sound like it should be. It took me three years just to get better at getting them into the story without having to stop and think so hard about. If left to my own devices, I’d have simply done no details at all!
Description itself, were details usually lurk, does get a bad rap. People always think of it as boring, and don’t realize it’s not description, but how they’re doing it. Very important to get down into the characters and use the character’s POV to pull in those details. And it still sounds simple, and it’s incredibly hard.
Linda, yes, the best writers make it look easy. To your point, meandering descriptions without purpose do nothing to advance our stories. It definitely takes time to get inside our characters to find the telling details that help our readers connect with them. It’s intentional hard work I do every day as a writer so you’re not alone. Thanks for sharing.