This Dated Essay of the Month isn’t dated at all. In fact, I have been thinking about the proper use of detail as I prepare for a workshop that we’re doing (for professionals) with Sheila Williams of Asimov’s in mid-September. Writers often forget about detail. They get lazy, they do it wrong, or they’ve never learned it in the first place.

I no longer attend a weekly workshop, and I no longer edit F&SF. Those are the only two things that date this essay. Otherwise, it’s something I could have written an hour ago—or next week—or five years from now.

Detail
Kristine Kathryn Rusch

For the last few weeks, I have been stressing the use of detail, although I don’t feel as if I have been explaining what I mean very well. This is a difficult point to get across in a verbal critique. So I thought a short article might be in order.

We often emphasize the difference between “real” detail and “fake” detail. Fake detail often uses phrases like “smelled of” or “felt like.” Real detail dispenses with those distancing techniques and puts us in the middle of the scene.

Rather than use abstract terms, I am going to use examples. The first will always be composed of fake details — adequate, but not good. The second will be made of real details. In some ways, I am cheating here: the fake details will be mine, and the real details will come from experts in scene setting. I will try to follow their style as much as possible. I will explain the first two and leave analyzing the third up to you. Here goes:

Example One:
It was night. The snow-covered fields looked white against the night’s darkness. A gust of wind swirled across the nearest field and he was there again, a gray shape in the darkness. He was drawing closer, much closer. Then she blinked, and he was gone. [KKR]

Night. The fields lay stark as a charcoal drawing — white drifts, the black clawed talons of the trees, the starlight piercingly bright. A gust of wind-driven snow swirled across the nearest field and he was there again. A shape in the twisting snow. A whisper of moccasins against white grains of ice. One step, another. He was drawing closer, much closer. Then she blinked, the snow swirled in a new flurry of wind, and he was gone. The field lay empty. [Charles de Lint, opening paragraph of his short story, "The Soft Whisper of Midnight Snow," The Best of Pulphouse, St. Martins Press, 1991, P. 314]

The details are okay in the paragraph I wrote. They are vague, but they do give a picture. The arrival of “she” as the viewpoint character is a bit of a shock, because the style of writing makes the mysterious man the focus. By the end of the paragraph, the reader has forgotten that the man is appearing to someone.

Charles reminds you of the narrator by his choice of detail. In the second paragraph, we learn that the woman is an artist — no surprise, given that she sees the world as a charcoal drawing and then he explains that drawing so that we can see it too. His syntax also creates character. She is panicked and not thinking in full sentences. The rhythm carries us.

My paragraph uses the senses of sight and touch. (We can feel the blink and the wind gusting.)

Charles’ paragraph uses sight, touch, and sound, all to greater advantage. Again, word choice is important. The wind doesn’t just gust: the wind carries snow with it. A gust of wind-driven snow which swirls and later twists. He reminds us of the chill and harshness of that by using the phrase “white grains of ice” to describe snow. In his paragraph, we are part of the scene — a frightened observer (the viewpoint character) and when the word “she” appears toward the end, we expect it.

The same events happen in both scenes. Only the use of detail makes the difference.

Example Two
The clouds had rolled in at sunset, black and heavy. The storm arrived as I drove to the edge of town, covering everything in light rain. I was about to stop at Del’s and pick up dinner when a car came out of a side street, hit a curb and swerved down the road. [KKR]

The sky had gone black at sunset, and the storm had churned inland from the Gulf and drenched New Iberia and littered East Main with leaves and tree branches from the long canopy of oaks that covered the street from the old brick post office to the drawbridge over Bayou Teche at the edge of town. The air was cool now, laced with light rain, heavy with the fecund smell of wet humus, night-blooming jasmine, roses and new bamboo. I was about to stop my truck at Del’s and pick up three crawfish dinners to go when a lavender Cadillac fishtailed out of a side street, caromed off a curb, bounced a hubcap up on a sidewalk, and left long serpentine lines of tire prints through the glazed pools of yellow light from the street lamps. [James Lee Burke, opening paragraph of his novel In the Electric Mist with the Confederate Dead, Hyperion, 1993, p. 1]

I see a thousand openings like the one I wrote above. Again, the events are the same as the events in Burke’s opening below, but my paragraph lacks punch even though it sets a scene. (We know we are in a storm, near a restaurant named Del’s, as a car comes off a side street.)

But notice the difference exact detail makes. Burke uses careening language to sweep us into the scene with the storm. The words “my truck” and “three crawfish dinners to go” make the stop at Del’s real. Burke is describing a real place, using place names, but not leaving out the reader who has never been to Louisiana. We know that the air was hot before the storm came. We know we are near the Gulf, on a road with canopied trees, where the air smells of humus, jasmine, roses and new bamboo. (Gee, Toto, guess we’re not in Oregon any more.) My paragraph could have happened anywhere, but Burke’s is unique to one place — a place I can imagine even though I have never been there.

Note too the way he uses verbs to add to the action. The lavender Cadillac fishtails. It caroms. The hubcap bounces on the curb. (Hear it? That’s a sound detail.)

My opening uses sight and touch (again, quite common actually), but Burke uses all five senses, including taste (or have you forgotten those crawfish dinners?) Yet never once does he use “sees,” “sounds like,” “feels like,” “smells of,” or “tastes of.” A master. An absolute master.

Okay. The third example comes from the middle of a novel and describes a place. I want you to examine how static description comes alive with no action to move it forward. This time the analysis is up to you.

Example Three
About twenty minutes away, between the airfield and the motor pool, stood Billy’s. Billy’s had once been a French command post, but it didn’t look anything like a French command post. It looked like a roadhouse. Some boys served drinks, but in all the time I went there, I never learned where those boys went when Billy’s closed.

The building needed paint. It had no electricity, no ice, and no bathroom. When you needed a toilet, you used a hole in the floor. [KKR]

About twenty minutes away, at the curve in the steeply descending road to the airfield and the motor pool, stood an isolated wooden structure called Billy’s. Billy had gone home long ago, but his club, supposedly an old French command post, had endured. When it was open, a succession of slender Montagnard boys who slept in the nearly empty upstairs rooms served drinks. I visited these rooms two or three times, but I never learned where the boys went when Billy’s was closed. Billy’s did not look anything like a French command post: it looked like a roadhouse.

A long time ago, the building had been painted brown. Someone had once boarded up the two front windows on the lower floor, and someone else had torn off a narrow band of boards across each of the windows, so that light entered in two flat white bands that traveled across the floor during the day. There was no electricity and no ice. When you needed a toilet, you went to a cubicle with inverted metal bootprints on either side of a hole in the floor. [Peter Straub, from Part 2, section 2 of his novel, The Throat, published by Signet Books in 1994, p. 80]

Okay. I hope what I mean by the need for crisp detail is clearer now. If it isn’t, I suppose I can always go into more detail — later.

Copyright © 1994 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

A great month for reading until the last week or so, when I got bogged down in a book by one of my favorite authors. Had anyone else written it, I would have quit on page 100, but I was convinced it would get better (based on her track record). It didn’t, but I slogged through. I was relieved to leave it and read a few children’s books afterwards just to clear my palate.

Otherwise I had a lot of fun. Excellent books here, a few of which surprised me—in a good way.

July, 2008

Calonita, Jen, Secrets of My Hollywood Life: On Location, Little, Brown, 2007. I had read the earler volume, Calonita’s debut novel, Secrets of My Hollywood Life. While I liked it well enough to buy the next book, I described it to friends as Princess Diaries meets Hollywood.

In the second volume, Calonita finds her own voice and her own story to tell. Our heroine, Kaitlin Burke, teen celebrity, has a heck of a problem. She’s working on a film where everyone seems to hate her, even her assistants. Stories leak to the tabloids, high jinks ensue, and in the end all is made right. But the journey is original and a great deal of fun.

I’m buying the next volume the minute I hit the bookstore, and putting Calonita on my to-read list for every time a new book comes out.

Connelly, Michael, The Brass Verdict, Little, Brown, October, 2008. Yet another book that’s not been released. That’s the benefit of having a friend who goes to Book Expo and brings you back autographed copies of your favorite authors’ works.

The Brass Verdict takes two of Connelly’s characters, his detective Harry Bosch and defense attorney Mickey Haller, and brings them together in the same novel. The novel is truly a legal thriller, written in first person from Haller’s point of view. It becomes clear by the end why Connelly chose that technique.

The book is a fascinating balancing act between a mystery reader’s expectation of justice and a defense attorney’s job (which is to make sure everyone accused of a crime gets to be treated as innocent in court [even if they’re not]).

The book is so well written, the Los Angeles venues so well drawn that the morning after I finished, I woke up thinking I had actually seen the murder house on television the day before. It’s difficult for an author to achieve such vivid detail without sacrificing story, and Connelly does it here without using an extra word or sacrificing an ounce of plot.

Good book, great story. Recommended.

Cowell, Alan S., The Terminal Spy: A True Story of Espionage, Betrayal, and Murder, August 2008. This is the account of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent who was poisoned by polonium in London in 2006. Intriguing for a variety of reasons: the examination of an ex-patriot’s life in London, the personal impact of the fall of the Soviet Union on one of its partisans, and the details of the murder and subsequent investigation.

I’d followed this thing in the press because it was so bizarre—murdered with a radioactive isotope in a hotel bar in London—and the way that the police were able to track the killers using the radiation. The book goes deeper into all of that, and postulates reasons for the death.

Once I got used to Cowell’s distinctly British style, I read quickly. Fascinating.

Estleman, Loren D., “The Profane Angel,” Prisoner of Memory and 24 of the Year’s Best Crime and Mystery Stories, Pegasus, 2008. An old Hollywood story, filled with half-remembered movie stars and long gone glamour. Touching and warm, and just a bit surprising.

Ferriolo, Jack D., The Big Splash, Amulet, September, 2008. Another proof. This one caught me right after the Big Name debacle mentioned in my introduction. The Big Splash is for the 10-14 age group, but I think adults will like it too. In fact, adults might like it better, since this is an homage to The Big Sleep, set in Middle School.

The voice is pure Chandler, and all the hard-boiled tropes are here. Only the head mobster is a bully who makes his money selling fake hall passes, the beautiful bad girl is “twelve but looks fourteen” and wields a mean squirt gun. Our hero is the jaded son of a single parent who is trying to hold the entire corrupt world together with the force of his morality, and only just succeeding.

It’s clever and it’s fun, and it makes more sense than The Big Sleep. This reads like the start of a series, one that I will continue to follow.

Franklin, Ariana, The Serpent’s Tale, Putnam, 2008. I’d read Ariana Franklin’s first book in this mystery series set in England in the 12th century. The title of that one caught me: Mistress of the Art of Death. The series follows a woman trained in medicine in Salerno, where a medical college existed. Those trained in the art of death are essentially forensic pathologists.

The first book led me to this one, which is wonderful. Characters include Eleanor of Aquitane, Henry the Second as well as a motley crew of heroine, her smelly dog, her infant daughter, some English helpmeets and a Muslim man who pretends to be the doctor (and who pretends he can’t speak English) so that the English will accept her.

The history’s good, the descriptions/settings are wonderful, the history of medicine accurate so far as I can tell, and the whodunnits just marvelous. Highly recommended.

Goonan, Kathleen Ann, “Memory Dog,” Asimov’s April/May, 2008. Oh, how I wanted to hate this story. It starts dark—the world has ended and an important child has died—and it threatens to go darker. The POV character is an augmented dog. If the story went true to most sf published in the last two decades, this dark story would become an unbearable read.

But Kathleen’s prose kept me in the story, for which I am now quite grateful. Because the story took the cliches of the past twenty to thirty years and turned them upside down.

Powerful, insightful, and worth the price of the entire issue.

Gorman, Ed and Martin H. Greenberg, Prisoner of Memory and 24 of the Year’s Best Crime and Mystery Stories, Pegasus, 2008. Normally when I read a year’s best volume, I skip a few stories that just aren’t to my taste, find a few brilliant stories, and stop reading a handful midway through because they’re not holding my interest. I only stopped reading one story in this volume and that was because I figured out where it was going and I didn’t want to go there. (I even skipped a bit ahead to make sure I was right.) Otherwise, I didn’t skip a story. I found a few that I really liked (mentioned elsewhere on this list) and the rest were enjoyable reads. This is my favorite year’s best mystery volume each year and that’s partly because Ed and Marty rarely publish a bad story. The other year’s best mystery volumes (and most of the ones in sf/f and mainstream) are just too uneven, with as many unreadable stories as brilliant ones.

I’m not sure if I short-changed some of the authors in this volume by not mentioning them individually. The quality in this book is so high that I might have failed to mention them because they didn’t stand out here—although they would have in the other year’s best volumes. Buy it. Read it. It’s good.

King, Stephen, editor, Best American Short Stories, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008. The volume sags a bit toward the middle, with several beautifully written stories that lose track of their plot. But as I thought about the book overall, I realized the ratio of excellent stories to mediocre ones is extremely high. If this were one of the previous volumes of this anthology, I would have been happy with the saggy stories—there’s a lot about them to recommend. The problem here is that they’re surrounded by such good stories that the sag is much more noticeable.

I only gave up on two stories, which is considerably fewer than some sf/f year’s bests I’ve read—and one of them I gave up on because I simply can’t stomach the topic (nothing to do with the writing/author/plot at all).

Usually, I’m happy if I enjoy about half of the stories in an anthology. I enjoyed considerably more here, and recommended a surprising number of them. (See the listings below and in June & May.)

When this anthology has a good overall editor—as it did this year—the memorable stories are among the best I’ve ever read. (I still recommend Ha Jin’s “When Cowboy Chicken Came to Town” from a previous volume as one of the best clash of culture stories I’ve read outside of sf.) The anthology covers the range of fiction– mainstream, mystery, horror, fantasy, and science fiction—just like a volume that calls itself the year’s best stories (without genre label) should do. In here, you’ll find historical tales, werewolf stories, futuristic tales, and some meaty crime stories in addition to the stories of daily life.

Highly recommended.

Levinson, Richard, “A Prisoner of Memory,” Prisoner of Memory and 24 of the Year’s Best Crime and Mystery Stories, Pegasus, 2008. Another old Hollywood story. Gorman & Greenburg chose it as the title story of the collection and for good reason. If I say too much more, I’ll spoil it. So all I’ll say is read it.

Pollack, Eileen, “The Bris,” Best American Short Stories, edited by Stephen King, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008. If I say too much about this story, I ruin it for you. Read it. It’s one of the best in the volume. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wince, and you’ll understand. Enough said.

Russo, Richard, “The Horseman,” Best American Short Stories, edited by Stephen King, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008. The title didn’t do much for me. Still doesn’t. I had to go back to the volume to remember what the title is.

But the rest of the story is marvelous. Richard Russo is one of my favorite writers, whether he’s focusing on small towns or on academia. Here his target is not just academia, but academic writing and research.

Great insights about writing in here. Great insights about living. If you’re a writer, you should read this story.

Tunstall, Tricia, Note by Note: A Celebration of the Piano Lesson, Simon and Schuster, April, 2008. My husband picked up this book when it was on my reading pile and shook it at me. “Someone actually published a book about piano lessons?” he asked.

Not only did someone publish it, but it’s wonderful. The last chapter actually made me cry.

If you’ve ever taken a music lesson—or taught one—buy this book. If you wonder what music lessons are like, buy this book. If you want to read good literary non fiction, buy this book.

It is, bar none, the best book I’ve read all year.

Van Pelt, James, “Harvest,” Alembical, Paper Golem, November 2008. If we’re lucky, Alembical will be a new novella series—much needed in the sf field. This first volume, which will premiere at World Fantasy Con, has four stories, by excellent writers. The story that caught me is James Van Pelt’s “Harvest.” Van Pelt manages to catch the ambivalence that is the teenage years, with a tender look at friendship, mixed with the horrors of family life. This story has compassion, which so many dark stories do not, and the compassion gives it great power.

HBO is running a short documentary of Helen Thomas, the White House reporter who has covered 9 presidents. Thomas has always been a hero of mine. When I wanted to be a journalist, I wanted to be one in the Helen Thomas vein, who wasn’t afraid to speak truth to power or to ask the hard questions. The documentary, Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas at the White House is too short and doesn’t have enough biographical material on Thomas or much information on the White House Press Corps, but it’s a great place to start. And if you’re looking for a role model, Helen Thomas, who isn’t young and is waiting for the next president so she can get back into the briefing room, is someone to consider.

My story, “The Poop Thief,” has just appeared in Denise Little’s fun anthology, Enchantment Place. Enchantment Place has received a starred review in Romantic Times Book Reviews, and “The Poop Thief” was singled out as one of the highlights of the volume. You’ll find excellent stories from Mary Jo Putney, Esther Friesner, Christina York and many others as well.

The Worldcon reports are coming in and SF Signal has been keeping track of them. You can find links to all the reports here.

As for the second part of mine, I decided, after this brutal summer in sf, that I would see as many of my friends and mentors as possible. Even though this was the most sprawled Worldcon I’ve ever been to (spread out between hotels and the convention center over most of a mile), I did get to say hello to a lot of folks, including Fred Pohl (on Sunday) and Rusty Havelin (whose name I’m probably misspelling).

Having conversations was another matter. For professionals, the nighttime “parties” are really big networking fests. Unfortunately, the air conditioning in the party suites wasn’t working. It was a sauna and we didn’t stay long on any particular night.

Most of my conversations happened in the bar on the ground floor of the Hyatt Regency, including a lovely talk with Lou Anders. Seems we have a lot of similar interests, and I know both of us hope to continue the conversation at some future convention.

I didn’t make it to panelling, which made me sad. The only panels I heard were my own. Two of them were with Dean, doing a truncated version of the presentation we usually give to beginning writers. The only other panel–crime and detection in the future–was fun, but old ground. Still, we had a large and interested crowd, which was nice.

Several folks showed up to my reading. I read “Say Hello to My Little Friend,” a humor story that will appear later this year (or early next) in an anthology called Invisible Friends. Reaction was good, thank heavens. Always a bit risky to read a humor story.

I also had two signings, both of which were packed. And then there were the Sidewise Awards, which was preceded by a good discussion of what makes Alternate History, and the Hugo Awards. The Hugos are always fun, whether you’re a nominee or not–and whether you win or not. This year, the pre-Hugo reception for the nominees provided a great chance to have good conversation with old friends. Wil McCarthy did a good job as MC of the entire affair–and I think it was the shortest Hugo ceremony on record.

I didn’t win, as you probably know by now, but I honestly didn’t mind. I was pleased to be with such august company–Connie Willis (who took the prize), Nancy Kress, Gene Wolfe, and Lucius Shepard. I think the nomination itself was the award for me this year.

Found myself happy to be back in the field and to spend time with fans–to have long conversations about Dr. Who and whether current physics supports time travel theories and all the other things that fen discuss at conventions. Also got ideas for stories (always a good thing) and even more ideas for articles and columns.

So the entire experience was fun, tiring, and inspiring.

I must admit, though, I’m happy to be back at sea level, where tonight’s temperature is 55 degrees after a high of 70. I’ve lived on the Oregon Coast long enough to become a weather wimp.

I will be at Worldcon next year–barring unforeseens–and that will be in Montreal. If you want to check out information on this convention, go here.