Story and Nested Structures

Lately I have used a the idea of interrupting the dramatic action of a story with an explanation to give shape to my writing. I know, this sounds like a good way to ruin the flow and pacing of a story, but bear with me. This is a structure that I have found useful in everything from bits of dialogue to full scenes to entire story arcs across the length of a novel. It’s scalable and you can build nested story structures with it and It Works Really Well.

Here’s the basic idea, as applied to the act of writing a very short story. Imagine you've started writing something new, and you've got the initial action and image down on the page. Maybe it goes something like this:

The blood on my hands made the wheel slippery and the car slewed into the left-hand lane before I regained control. I’d put off replacing the old wiper blades and they were almost useless in the heavy rain; I was driving nearly blind through the night, driving much too fast. Christ, there was a lot of blood on me. It was serious now, and I had to get out there to the house as soon as I could. I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way this time. I was going to finish this, all of it, tonight.

You, as the writer, already know how the story will turn out, what’s going to happen at the house on the edge of town, and why. The main dramatic action of the story is What Happens This Night At The House Outside Of Town. But you have to explain it; you have to give meaning and context to that action. So you cut the story of the drive and confrontation in half, right in the middle, and you go backwards in time to give the events leading up to your protagonist getting behind the wheel of his car. So maybe we’ll take an intermediary step backwards, somewhere between the story-present and the backstory. Maybe it goes something like this:

Juliette had tried to stop this before I was even born. All of that crap with the Moon and all of that time in the asylum hadn’t changed anything. Juliette had been a good mother, but she couldn’t prevent this.

So I think that’s a fine transitional passage. The story-present has mentioned some mysterious “it” and this passage refers to that same “it” but gives more (though vague) information about whatever “it” is, invoking the Moon and an asylum. Maybe something to do with werewolves? I don’t know. I’m making this up as I go along, but if this was your story, you’d already know. We've given a lot of information in nine sentences, and to me it doesn’t feel like an info-dump, even though almost all of it’s been exposition so far.

We have also pointed the narrative in a new direction at this point, at a new character: the protagonist’s mother. From this intermediary passage, which already steps us outside of the story-present’s timeline, we can go to the important bits of the protagonist’s backstory, if we want. Maybe something like this:

The first sign that something was wrong came when I was five years old. We were living in Chicago at the time, in a crappy one-bedroom apartment in one of those ugly tombstone-like tenements on the South Side. One morning I was sitting at the wobbly linoleum table in the kitchenette, eating my cereal. Juliette was in the bathroom, getting ready for work. I saw something out of the corner of my eye and turned to look up at the kitchen counter. Right beside the sink was a greasy black rat, reared up on his back legs, his shining red eyes looking straight at me. I felt like I'd been hit in the chest, right in my heart, with a hammer.

I don’t know what happened next. Something scary, I’m sure. But at this point, we have established a nested structure of storylines:

1. The external dramatic story, of the House Outside Of Town.
2. The story of Juliette, which is also the larger historical story of whatever “it” is.
3. The personal history of the protagonist, who I have just named Dick Raley because I can.

Having established this overall nested structure, we can move between the three timelines at will. The thing to remember is that, if you want to do this right, you have to keep the action moving forward. Everything that happens in whatever level of narrative has to foreshadow and set up whatever happens next in whatever timeline. The story keeps moving forward, always. You do not stop the story. Ever.

My favorite place to insert these interruptions is right when the dramatic action has reached a fever pitch. That is to say, right before the climax and resolution of the action. For example, if a story of mine had this passage during the Final Confrontation between Protagonist and Antagonist: I pointed the gun at his head. He asked me not to, he begged me, told me there was no other woman. I didn't believe him. He started to run, and I pulled the trigger. I would be tempted to stop right there after the word "trigger" and loop backwards through time for a paragraph or two to give an image (always dramatized, not just internal monologue or whatever form of telling) that either shows how the woman with the gun is mistaken but doesn't realize it (Irony!) or how she and the cheating bastard were once happy (Pathos!) or something else depending on what's going on in the story.

It’s also possible to use these nested levels to discuss different things about the story. For example, you can use level 3, Dick Raley’s personal history, to tell the inner story, which is going to be Dick’s coming to terms with some truth about himself or the world that he doesn’t want to admit. Or whatever. You can use level 2, about Dick’s mother Juliette, to explore the theme(s) of the story, where this truth of Dick’s causes some kind of conflict between Dick’s personal reality and the rest of the world. Or whatever. And you can use level 1, the “gosh, but I’m covered with blood and driving too fast” story, to tell an action-packed suspense story. So you can have three stories all at the same time, linked together and nested like Matryoshka dolls. There is no limit to how many nested stories-within-stories or moments-within-moments you can have. There may be a limit to how much of this your reader can take, depending on how sudden the shifts are.

I actually wanted to talk about the subtle things you can do with this nesting of timelines, but I realized I should talk about this in a more general sense first. Maybe next time.

Also! Contest! Yes, a quick contest, if anyone wants to enter. Take my three paragraphs above and finish the "bloody hands" story I’ve begun! Keep it to about 1000 words or fewer! Winner gets a valuable prize! Likely a stinking Amazon gift card, because that seems to be what people give as prizes in the age of blogs. You have until, I don’t know, Tuesday, November 2nd to enter. I am sole and final judge, and I reserve the right not to award the prize. If you have an entry, email it to me at scott (at) scottgfbailey (dot) com. If you don’t have an entry, I still like you.

Chrono-illogical?

I admit it. Almost all of the stories I write have back story. Do yours? Generally, I don't have a problem with backstory, but I do think it can become a problem when one always relies on it.

A story that requires backstory hasn't started from the proper beginning. Or, to put it another way, a story with backstory is told out of chronological order.

The reason for writing out of order is most likely because of drama. Either the backstory is so uninteresting that it ends up getting tucked away into other more interesting parts. Or, the backstory is so interesting that it's saved for the climax. In this latter example, the backstory serves to fill in a missing gap in the story, giving the piece as a whole almost a mystery-solving characteristic.

I'm not advocating writing everything in chronological order. Not at all. But, I do think that a story without backstory is a significantly different animal than one that does have it. A story without backstory carries a lot of momentum behind it. The forward-moving timeline really propels the reader forward, and I think it can have a much more exciting feel to it.

I also think that backstory often comes from an attempt to explain a character. In the "literary" character-driven-type story, a character's motivations often stem from some past experience. At least that's how I've used it. But, I wonder if this is also a limitation. It seems to me to be a rather narrow view of psychology when my character eats his lover because of some past break up he had while living in Paris.

What do you all think? Is backstory a weakness? How many of your works don't have backstory? And, most importantly, does it matter?

There Is No Backstory

This is my somewhat anticipated post about eliminating backstory in novels. I must rush to the airport soon to fetch the Poetess of Boise, so I'll be brief. Hopefully there will be time to read your comments later. No promises.

Suppose your novel begins with a big chunk (a chapter or two) of backstory. Or, suppose you have big chunks of backstory in other parts of your novel. In either of these cases, you may have decided that you don't want the backstory coming at the reader in big blocks that slow down the narrative, but you don't know what to do about it. How do you get rid of these big blocks of backstory? I have a couple of suggested techniques for this, which I call Cut and Move and There Is Only Now.

Cut and Move is pretty simple, because it's just what it sounds like. You cut out the whole block of backstory, removing it entirely, and stitch together as necessary the bits of story that surrounded the backstory, so that it flows together over what was for a moment a huge gaping hole in the narrative. You've deleted your infodump for all time and patched over the seam. Next, you read through your manuscript and see what parts of the story no longer make sense to the reader without the missing backstory, and mark for inclusion only those bits of deleted backstory absolutely necessary for the story to remain intelligible. I think you will find that most of the backstory you cut out is unnecessary to the story. Keep in mind that just because your prose is important to you, that does not make it important to your reader.

Where do you put this recycled backstory? Only where it has to be. If something is necessary for the reader to know, you tell them when they must know it, at the last possible moment and in the least obtrusive manner as possible. I recommend using the plainest prose you've got when writing about this stuff.

Cut and Move works best for historical or setting details, when talking about a place or an object. If, however, you are writng about characters and are establishing motivations and behaviors, Cut and Move doesn't work so well as does a technique I call There Is Only Now.

There Is Only Now is based on the idea that your reader doesn't care as much about the past as she does about the present in your story. In other words, we don't want to know what happened, we want to know what is happening. Don't tell me where your protagonist has been, tell me where he is right now, and where he's going.

Which is to say, whatever character traits you want to show, you can show them in the story present. Take your backstory telling about the traumatic events in your MC's past that result in his being afraid of fire or whatever, and rewrite it so that the events (or something similar) happen in the story present. Show us how your character is Now. There is only now.

Is there a ghost who's angry about a past lover's betrayal? Show the ghost Now, acting out that anger. Do not give us a prologue or a flashback. We don't know about the past lover and why the ghost is angry? That's good; it adds a mystery for the protagonist to solve, and that adds action to the story and action is good.

In my book, I had a scene where my protagonist's father was begging for a favor from a powerful man. I rewrote it so that it takes place years later, in the story present, and the protagonist is begging a favor from the powerful man. It's much more dramatic and compelling. We see the protagonist acting in the Now.

The biggest problem with backstory is that is tends to show characters as people things happen to instead of people who do things. If you take the same events from the story past and make them into events in the story present, you get to see the characters acting (which is always more interesting), the details and character traits become more compelling and memorable, and the story itself has forward momentum. Things are happening Now.

An observation about complex backstory: If your backstory is so complex that you simply cannot use the suggestions above, I might be inclined to think that either a) your story is too complicated to be intelligible to most readers, or b) your backstory might be the real story you want to write and you should think about that.

A final caveat: It's not necessary that you take any of these suggestions, nor is it necessary that you write books that don't have big chunks of backstory.

In Medias Res

In Medias Res is Latin for "in the middle of things," and refers to the story-telling device of starting a narrative not at the beginning but during a dramatic scene, skipping any backstory or setting or characterization and getting directly to the action. You open the book to page one and BANG! you're in the middle of the story already.

Literary agents seem to like this approach, if one judges by their blogs, and one is tempted to say that this is a "modern" writing technique, that the classics of literature could not be published today because writers used to spend the first 10,000 words of their books giving us setting and backstory and introducing characters. But beginning in medias res has a long and illustrious history. I took a quick look at my librarything account and grabbed the following titles, all of which start in the middle of the action:

True History of the Kelly Gang (published 2002)
My Name is Red (published 2001)
The Master and Margarita (published 1966)
Crime and Punishment (published 1866)
Paradise Lost (published 1667)
Hamlet (published 1601)
The Iliad (written c. 800 BCE)
The Odyssey (written c. 800 BCE)

I'm not going to discuss the relative merits of beginning in medias res versus easing into/setting up the story (though feel free to do so in the comments). What I will do is, maybe, give some advice on how to structure the beginning of a novel to start off in medias res. It's going to be oversimplified, cookbook-style advice, because we must deal with generalities in a forum like this. Sorry.

I will assume you have written something like this:

Prologue (ick!)
Hook sentence or paragraph.
Backstory and setting.
Dramatic action leading to inciting incident.
Inciting incident.
et cetera.

Step One: Read your first chapter or two and find the first dramatic action that is part of the story's real conflict. By which I mean, if your book is about a vampire hunter who is haunted (sorry) by his past, skip the story about his past, no matter how dramatic, and get to the story-present's first dramatic scene (likely some vampire hunting by the adult protagonist).

Step Two: Start your book at the scene you found in Step One. It begins there and goes on from there, just as you've written it. What about all that stuff that used to go before it? Well, you're going to cut most of it. Read on.

Step Three: Cut your prologue. You don't need it. I know: you love your prologue, and know in your heart that the story can't begin without it. Your heart, alas, she is wrong. Admit that your prologue is back-story, and You Do Not Begin With Back-story!

Step Four: Read your book, beginning with the new first scene. Do you really need any of the back-story you cut out? Really? Do you? How much of it? Note where there is missing information that must be filled in.

Step Five: Read through all the stuff that you have skipped over by beginning with the new first scene. Highlight or otherwise mark those things that are absolutely necessary for the reader to understand the story; you aim to fill in those areas you flagged in Step Four. Cut everything else. No, I mean it: cut everything else. You don't need it, and your readers don't want it.

Step Six: There is no Step Six. You're done. Move on with your life and enjoy your shiny new actiony story beginning. You should have a structure that now looks like this:

Dramatic action leading to inciting incident.
More dramatic action leading to inciting incident.
Inciting incident.
Possible introduction of back-story.
et cetera.

A note on Step Five: You might want to keep some of the details you don't necessarily need for clarity, and use them to add depth and substance to the book. Just don't let your world-building and gorgeous descriptive passages get in the way of the story itself.

Also: there are other ways to do this, other ways to structure a story, and they are equally valid. I'm just offering up a simple way to turn a slow-starting novel into something that starts more quickly. And again, I'm not saying that this is the Best Way to start a story; it's just one way to do it.

Trust

I've had the word TRUST on my blog post list for awhile now. But I was never sure what I wanted to say. Natalie's post helped guide me in the right direction. When someone begins reading your story, they may feel like this frog:



Natalie says it better than I can:

What does [not trusting your reader] mean? It boils down to not trusting that your audience will "get" what you're trying to give them. This leads to over explaining and repetition, which is annoying to a smart reader (and guess what, I hear most readers are smart people).

Backstory, Flashbacks, and Extraneous Scenes
Look at all of these closely. I recently did a post on my writing blog about how your reader might not care about most of this stuff. How do you present it? Is it ripping your reader out of the real story? You may care deeply about all of that information, but how much does your reader really need to know?

Scott wrote an excellent post on backstory here.

Fillers
Most of the time, scaffolding is unnecessary. If your reader screams "I know!", you don't have to put a dialogue tag after it that says she screamed loudly.

He was just plain downright annoyed. He stomped his foot and clenched his fists.

When he looked deeply into her eyes, he whispered softly and lowered his voice.

The cool breeze flowed into the small room and rustled the lacy curtains until the stagnant air felt refreshed.

These are obvious examples, but I see this all the time. Adverbs. Extra adjectives, etc. Wordiness!

Repetition
You. Don't. Need. To. Repeat. Things. Except for this phrase: You don't need to repeat things! This is my biggest problem. I like to pound things into my reader's head. Symbolism. Metaphors. Obvious things. A good example is from Natalie's post:

"That's not a good idea," he said. He seemed sure we shouldn't go in the cave.

Yes, and then I would probably repeat again in a later paragraph that he seemed sure we shouldn't go in the cave. The dialogue said it all. Just leave it at that.

Oh, Hate Them!
If one of your characters is a downright mean, ugly person. Let them be. Don't make excuses for them. Don't try and make them likable because you've read somewhere that all characters need to be likable.

In my first novel, one of my main POV characters is a terrible person. The other main POV character hates her. So why would I try and make her likable from the get go? I have no idea. But I did. And the character rings false.
_______

These are a few things that hinder trust, which can lead to you looking like a poor storyteller, a weak writer, and someone who doesn't trust their own work and abilities. Trust me (haha), I'm barely learning all of this. I know I have a long way to go in strengthening my writing. I think a follow-up post is in order for things that help the reader trust. Scott? Davin? Any volunteers for a guest post?

Question For The Day: How important do you feel it is that your reader trusts you? Do you have any other examples of how a writer can hinder trust?


~MDA (aka Glam)

Story and Backstory

I am soon to begin some revisions on a novel at the behest of my agent. While I've been whining to a few friends that these revisions will either "dumb down" or otherwise harm my beautiful, sensitive story, it occured to me this morning that what my agent suggests is nothing more than removing a lot of backstory from the beginning of the tale and fitting it in later on.

Neither he nor I have put it quite like this before, because a) my agent isn't a writer and he just gives me his instinctive "gut feeling" comments, and b) I hadn't realized until very recently that my protagonist's youth wasn't the story, but was in fact backstory. It was quite an epiphany when I realized this. The actual story doesn't begin until the very last scene of the first chapter (and I write fairly long chapters, so my readers have to get through 60 pages before the tale begins to kick into gear).

While my protagonist's backstory is eventful and colorful and gorgeously-written (I tell myself), it does delay not only the beginning of the book's central action (which, frankly, I don't mind because I have read a lot of that sort of book), but also the protagonist's central desires and the motivation for his actions throughout the rest of the book. So I'll do some restructuring in July and August.

This might sound like another exhortation to grab your reader in the first sentence and not let go, but it's not. Nor is my agent asking me to do that. One of his comments, about 40 pages into the ms, was "I'm willing to read more about your MC's youth, but not much." It's fine to give background, set the scene (especially in alternate-world type novels; mine takes place in the 16th century, so some setting is necessary for the action to make sense), introduce characters. But, at some point you have to be telling a story and letting the reader know why they're reading your book.

So the point (finally) is that you need to think about where the actual story begins, and not lard on too much setting before that. Begin at the beginning. There is always a sort of "Chapter 0" before your book starts, and you should move as much of that as you can into chapters after the beginning. I'm going to work my MC's youth into later chapters (like Chapter 2 and 3, I think) so that readers will have met the main players first, found out the driving forces behind the action, and then get the history. I hope.

How do you know where your actual story begins? I think there is a sort of "story present," the "now" of the story when it seems to be happening, for the reader, in real time. Does everything that happens outside of that "story present" need to be cut, or shoved into the story and revealed along the way of the "now?" Not necessarily. Some writers, like Jhumpa Lahiri in "The Namesake," tell stories in chronological order, more-or-less, though "The Namesake" begins with a birth and then, while the mother is at the hospital delivering the protagonist, the story loops backward in time to give us the backstories of the protagonist's parents. Geraldine Brooks does something similar in "March," and this is the sort of thing I'll be doing with my own book.

In other words, be prepared for an editor or agent to tell you that your wonderful prologue needs to be moved into the body of the story, and be prepared to do that work.

The Good Carpenter Versus The Bad Magician

She has since answered to her own question, but Traci from Words, Words, Words... asked us about those long passages that sometimes happen in books when a character speaks for pages to reveal some history that the reader needs to know.

"Hey, Charlie, I always meant to ask how you got that scar on your wrist."

"Funny you should ask, Felix. Back in 1962, I was a victim of a horrendous crime. It was a Thursday, the moon was peeping out from behind a polar bear-shaped cloud. The cold wind pierced through the thin tunic I wore as I rushed across Madson Bridge to get to my fiance's birthday party..."

We can all imagine this type of thing. Usually these long passages sound like anything but natural speech. The voice is the narrator's voice rather than a character's voice. The details usually have nothing to do with what the character would think about when revealing such information.

If we think about why a writer would choose to do such a thing, it's probably because she or he felt the need to get back story out, but didn't want to use the elementary device of going into flashback. Revealing back story through speech seemed like a more clever way of solving a particular problem.

But, what happens from a reader's point of view, in my opinion, is that we get pulled out of the story precisely because we've decided the writer is trying to be too clever. They're behaving like a bad magician who can't quite make us believe that the dove really flew out of a sleeve. We groan. Why did they even bother?

I think readers prefer a good carpenter over a bad magician. Instead of trying to be too clever in an attempt to impress the reader, consider telling the story as plainly and as simply as you can. Let the reader understand the structure, the scaffolding that you are using to build the story. If you need to get some history in there, for instance, you could use a simple transition sentence and then tell the information as you need to:

Charlie had a scar on his wrist because he had been a victim of a crime back in 1962. He had been rushing across Madson Bridge, trying to get to his fiance's birthday party when...

It may appear that you're writing childishly, but many times a reader will appreciate the simple solution. Just lay the story out for the reader to experience. Be sincere. Let the characters and the situation impress the reader, rather than the technique.

Of course, there is such a thing as a good magician. Some writers are excited by the chance to impress their readers by using clever tricks. If you can think of an unusual or ultra-interesting way of using a speech to reveal back story, then go for it!

Note: I just wanted to say that Tara Maya has an excellent post today on character-driven writing. Check it out!

Passages of Time

I am stealing the idea for this post from Tara Maya, who posted about the difficulties writers can have showing the passage of time in novels. Specifically, what to do when skipping ahead in the story. It doesn't really matter, in my experience, if you're talking about jumping an hour, a day, three years or three centuries. You need to keep the narrative flowing through these 'passages of time' (to coin a vile phrase).

What I think is important when skipping ahead is to keep the focus on the story, so that you are talking about the same thing (whether plot, theme, character, setting, mood or whatever) while you make the transition. Pick a story element and use it as your transitional device. Is a character waiting for news? Talk about the waiting while the time passes ("It took me three months to hear back from Derrick; I got his letter on the twentieth day of December"). Huge spans of time? Focus on something big that lasts through the eons ("As the years passed, the great Thorndyke mansion fell gradually into decay" or "Kingdoms rose and fell on the plains of Araxxara, and the great mountain outlived them all, standing imposing and some other adjective..."). You can also, for long leaps across the years, talk about an object ("The Vermeer Stradivarius passed through many hands before it found its way into those of Jakob Meerver...").

The point is to keep the narrative unbroken. What you don't want to do is have the story come to a stop at the end of one time period and then attempt to restart at the beginning of the next time period. The story must keep going during/across the time passage.

An exception to that rule is of course the chapter break, but only if your book is structured so that chapters generally begin further in the future than the last one ends. The reader will catch on to this structure quickly enough so you don't have to do much work aside from remaining consistent. I just read a lovely book where chapters alternate past/present consistently, and I wasn't confused ever. In my last novel, I think I was a bit clumsier handling passage of time than I could've been. My next novel will deal with it better, I swear.

I also think that this technique, of remaining focused on a story element through time changes, works with going backwards in time as well, for flashbacks (ugh) and whatnot. As long as the reader still knows what you're talking about, still is aware of the point of your narration, he will follow you along a great many tangents and timelines. But you have to give them something to hang onto while you gallivant across the years. So connect your timeline together with devices that form the backbone of the story. Don't think of your movement out of the story's "present" as breaks, but as digressions that are part of a larger framework, and tie them to your narrative present somehow.

The other thing to remember is that, very likely, any of the narrative/structural problems you'll come across have already been solved in any number of ways by good writers. I highly encourage you to look at books you admire and see how other writers have solved these problems in their own novels. Remember always to read like a writer, to learn from those who've come before us, and that there is no shame in standing on the shoulders of giants when we ourselves wish to rise above the crowd. That's a lame image but I'm tired, okay?

Caveat Lector: This all supposes that you write the sort of story that I write, in which a flowing and unbroken-seeming narrative is important. If your intent is to sometimes disorient the reader, or if you are trying to make the skips in the timeline stand out, you should ignore all of my advice. There are lots of types of stories, and lots of ways to tell those stories.

Revise Boring Descriptions

This post is in response to Lady Glamis's request for ways to avoid detail dumps in your writing. Detail dumps are those long descriptions that tend to intimidate or bore or infuriate most readers. (The comments in the last few posts definitely agree with this conclusion.)

In a detail dump, a reader feels like they are being stalled or overloaded with unimportant information. They want to skip ahead to the action or movement in the story. Sometimes they DO skip ahead. So, what can we do to make sure that we give out information in an interesting way?

I'm turning back to a lesson I learned from the wonderful writer, Mary Yukari Waters. She was also the one who got me to rethink the show-don't-tell rule. Keep in mind that this tip applies more to getting readers than to getting in touch with your own personal preferences. This is a tool for how you can improve your chances of connecting with strangers (such as agents) as they read through your manuscript. In other words, this may not be important to you.

Mary didn't directly address detail dumps, but she provided a tool to avoid what she called "skim-worthy prose." When writing prose, we have the goal of giving out information along with moving the story along. To keep the prose interesting for as many readers as possible, a writer must make sure the prose is doing as many different things as possible. The more things the prose is doing, the more likely a reader will like one of those things. It's statistics.

Here's a boring description:

Janet went out to the balcony. She wore an oversized cotton sweater and a pair of blue jogging shorts. She had on a wedding ring with a small diamond in it. She looked out at the lawn around the estate. It was sprawling with rows of squared hedges and rose gardens and water fountains. It led up to some low grassy hills. Between the hills, there was a view of the edge of a lake, the ripples in the water shimmered in the sunlight.

This isn't too long, but I think we get the sense that the details aren't providing us with much information about any sort of story or conflict. All we get here is a view of this woman, Janet, and where she is standing. To get more information and to feel like the story is moving, readers want action and insight into Janet's situation: her actions, her mood, her history, her thoughts. So, we can add all of this throughout the paragraph to give:

For the last time, Janet went out to the balcony. Although she usual wore delicate cashmere sweaters, today she had on an oversized cotton sweater and a pair of blue jogging shorts -- she didn't want anyone in the neighborhood to recognize her. She still had on her wedding ring, with the small diamond in it, but not for long. She slipped it off her finger and dropped it over the marble handrail. It landed with a tiny thud into the dirt below. She looked out at the lawn around the estate. It was sprawling with rows of squared hedges and rose gardens and water fountains. She once loved all of this, but now she hated it. She crossed her arms. She shut her eyes before she could see more. She knew that the lawn led up to some low grassy hills, and between the hills there was a view of the edge of a lake. The lake was the only thing she would miss. Not the house, not her husband, just the lake.

This second paragraph has all of the information that the first paragraph does, but it goes beyond that to keep the story moving and to reveal where Janet is on her journey. In the first paragraph, we got a bunch of details that didn't point to anything. In the second, the details give insight to what she likes and doesn't like. It tells us about her past and predicts what her future has in store. And, in the second paragraph, I have added some action, that of her taking off her wedding ring and dropping it down below. She has made a tangible move and we know that it was an important one.

So, how does this increase our chances of getting people to like the second paragraph over the first? Well, if the reader likes action, there is more action than there was before. If the reader likes psychology, there is more psychology than there was before. If the reader wants history, there is more history than there was before. AND, if the reader likes description, the description is still there. While the first paragraph only did one thing, the second paragraph does multiple different things. So, statistically, you are more likely to catch a reader's interest.

It's true that some people prefer simplicity. In my stories, I tend to choose really simple language and not much detail. The thing I risk is that I have to hope that the readers I'm targetting prefer the limited range I give them. It's like going to a restaurant with a fixed menu versus going to a grocery store where you can buy whatever you want. The restaurant might prepare a better version of cassoulet, but if you don't want cassoulet, the grocery store is the better bet.

Take a look at published books and short stories. Find a dense paragraph that has description in it. More than likely, you'll find that this description is interspersed with other details and action and flashback, etc. Most published writers have mastered the art of having their descriptive paragraphs serve multiple functions.

Mary had a simple way to evaluate your own writing. Read each paragraph and count on your fingers how many things it is doing. For her, if a paragraph is only doing one or two things, she revises it.