Specificity In Writing

     Spe-ci-ficity!

     If you've ever taken an acting class, you've probably heard a spiel or two about how important specificity is in deciding your character's actions; the way you speak, how you interact with your surroundings, the way you pick up a pencil and scrawl your character's signature, can all provide a wealth of information about who the character is, what they want, where they come from, etc.  In acting it's necessary that the actor create these specificities for their character because scripts tend to be pretty bare-bones.

     But when writing a novel or short story (or even dialogue for a script), specificity is every bit as important.  In fact, when writing a novel or short story or poem, etc, specificity can be the difference between an okay story, and a GREAT story.

     Which sounds more compelling?

     a)  "He walked in with his gun and looked around.  There were some hand prints on the wall and some stuff on the floor.  It took him a while to realize the blood was fresh."

     OR

     b)  "He entered silently, scanning the room with gun at the ready.  It was bare, containing only exposed copper wiring coated in dust and a few metal chains.  Seven gluey red hand prints decorated the filthy yellow walls, and it was thirty full seconds before it hit him--the blood was fresh."

     The second paragraph is much more compelling, isn't it?  Yes, part of that has to do with style and suchlike, but without the specificity of detail, there wouldn't be much to stylize!

     The more specific you are when describing something, the more easily the audience can envision what you see.  And details can carry significant weight--the difference between thirty seconds and thirty-seven seconds, for example, is an ocean--thirty seconds is usually either timed out using a stopwatch, or used as shorthand for "roughly half a minute."

     Thirty-seven seconds, though--that says "this is the real time that had passed, and your narrator knows it for a FACT!"  Exact times exude confidence--exact details exude confidence, correctness, a feeling that we're being told how it is.  It makes the audience take notice, and feel like they can trust you, because obviously you know what you're talking about when you can tell us exactly what material the walls are made from and what country that hat was made in.

     Take a look at your work.  Look for places where the details have been hand-waved, "some" this, "roughly" that, etc.  Ask yourself if a generalization fits the passage best, or if it could benefit from a few more specifics.

     Hint:  The more important something is, the more detailed and specific you'll want it to be.  Unless of course you're writing a mystery and trying to lay down some red herrings....