Orient

IMO there is nothing worse than reading a book with an interesting storyline which insists on babbling on about irrelavant details.

But where do you draw the line?

I have just started a new project and in the opening scene a young girl is in the kitchen with her older sister and her mother. I have managed to include a brief description of her sister (physical and personality) but I'm stuck with the mother. I know I need to make her a real person, she needs a history, a personality, something to help the reader picture her but I don't want to waffle on about her when the story is really nothing much to do with her.

Do I need to describe her or would it not matter to the reader if she is left as a simple "extra"?

Foxee

If the mother only has a bit part in the story I wouldn't spend a lot of time working on a background. Get a feel for who she is and what she's like (in case she runs away with the story as sometimes happens) to make her real then move on. If you're just writing your first draft of the story now just slot her name in, touch on whatever you need about her to write the scene and don't worry about the mom again until/unless she keeps showing up. If she does, she may need more development.

Too much detail, too little detail...it's a fine line that I'd say has to be found by trial and error. Don't think that the first words committed to the page are magic, you may change a LOT later in the revision process. Just write the story for now.

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Mike C

You can include snippets of info without waffling or going over the top. As the mother's cooking she brushes her greying hair out of her eyes, when she laughs here eyes crinkle up. Whatever, you don't have to feed a long description in one hit; give a few hints, let the reader fill in the gaps.

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HarryG

Each character in a story needs descriptive detail directly relevant to their importance in the tale you are telling, in the same way as dialogue must always be something that takes your story forward.


Minor characters need little description and shouldn't have much to say, per se, unless it takes the story forward.


If the mother says, “Try and come home early tonight, I hear that the Klu Klux Klan are meeting the Sheriff at eight,” then that remark will be relevant to your story.

Sam Winchester

So you can't have a line where one friend says to another: 'what did you think of the game last night?' That's not relevant to the story, is it? You're not going to write about him going to the next game, are you? Therefore it has no relevance to the story. That doesn't mean you can't put it in.

Where do people pull these rules from?

Sam.

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StephenP2003

If that snippet of dialog is (a) a segway to a conversation that progresses the plot, or (b) reveals something about the character that would effect the story, even in the slightest, then I'd say it's relevant.

What I can't stand is lengthy descriptions in the form of op-ed. Authors love to slip in their opinions here and there. I recently read Larry McMurtry's "All my friends are going to be strangers" and his obsession with western life really pulled me out of it. He practically put the book on pause for several pages just to ramble about the old west.

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flashgordon

As the famous Robert Eames said, "The details don't make the product, the product is the details."

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HarryG

I don't know where to start to answer that one, Sam. There are thousands of books on the subject of irrelevant dialogue and I've only read some of them.


However, the one I took most notice of was the one written by George Orwell, and funnily enough, he half-agrees with you. He provides a list of rules somewhere, and I clearly remember his last one, long after the advice about irrelevant dialogue.


It's not word for word, the book's out in the garage somewhere, but he said that if the rules don't fit in with what you're trying to say, then break them.

quarterscot

If the young girl's your main protagonist, Orient, I'd say some attention to her mother might be worthwhile. Our parents are never irrelevant to us, even when we want them to be. If you think about what sort of a person the mother is, what her relationship with her daughters is like, you could give depth to your central character. Just an idea.

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