July 25, 2022
How do you avoid giving readers TMI (too much information) about a character? How do you decide what to share about a story’s characters?
I am still getting moved in to our new home. Today we hung three pictures and I put away most of our souvenir mugs.
You don’t care, right? What if I told you if I told you we found the perfect place of honor for a picture that was my mother’s, an aerial view of our hometown, mounting it on the wall above her cedar chest in our new dining room? Are you a bit interested?
Now what if I told you we installed the hangers 18 inches from the ceiling and centered on a 56 inch wide blue-gray wall? Have I lost you again?
Writing is a balancing act, walking a tightrope between not enough detail and too much. The challenge is finding the pivot point. How does an author know when they’ve gone too far?
The answer changes based on genre and target audience. A home decorator will key into different details than a mathematician. Fantasy requires different details than cozy mysteries. Authors need to look at their writing thru their readers’ eyes and decide what is needed. More important questions are – do the details enhance the story? Help develop the plot? Give insight into the character? (Or too much – there may be things a reader should wait to discover.) There’s also the question if the details slow the pace of the story.
A trap that some authors fall into is repeating the same information in the story. Does the main character have brown hair and wear glasses? The reader doesn’t need to be reminded of those facts each time he or she enters the scene. In most cases, once is enough.
So, how much is too much? That’s up to the readers to decide. Do you really care that I unwrapped a mug from Yellowstone and put it in the kitchen cupboard today? And one from Daytona Beach Bike Week 1997? And from Kennedy Space Center? And – okay. I’ll stop now.
But don’t forget to check out what the other authors on this hop have to say about the fine art of not giving too much information. Just follow the links below.
As always, until next time, please stay safe.
July 25, 2022
How do you avoid giving readers TMI (too much information) about a character? How do you decide what to share about a story’s characters?