How to Find the Right Details for Fiction and Non-fiction

The most important thing a writer should do is to see the world for what it is. We may find justice, tragedy, injustice, or even a fine tuned detail about a man who just walked by us. We must see all this because, as writers, we are connected to the world like no one else. We see things for our fiction and non-fiction. They turn into stories and articles. They give us life.

We should look at the work of a novel first. Here is a collection of images. It can be as detailed and loving like a romance novel; or literary and absolute like the works of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, or the modern John Updike. The novel, as a collection of images, is often created through the act of seeing. The writer sees something, is not sure it could work its way into a newspaper article or short story, so they develop it into a novel. One scene can provide the catalyst for a years work.

The short story writer has to see the most important details. They cannot write "And he loved her beautiful, ray-like green eyes with a touch of hazel because they showed a window to his sole" because it does not move the story, it is a portrait for the longer form. Even if that clichéd look at the eyes finds its way into the short story, it will stand out like a bad apple. The short story writer sees different things that will move the story. Each new story must provide a different glimpse into the unknown.

The newspaper writer, when writing an article, is even stricter about such things. Not a single word about the eyes will work; that is something for the high paid magazine writer to say about a celebrity. The newspaper writer sees the story within the story-also called a Chinese box. Instead of writing about the whole sports team, they work on developing one person who is talented. This is the basic color story: it plays upon what people think about someone, can tear this down, or just provide a glimpse at a person.

We work on what we see when we read. We read the newspaper for facts and a glimpse, the short story for a few minute details, and the novel for the most complete of portraits. No form is superior to the other to read or write. We become writers by choosing when to use each for each separate story.