I want to see, hear, smell, feel, and maybe even taste the world I’m visiting in a book. But if you really want to put me there you need to be careful not to load me down with too many mundane details.

I critiqued one book where the author showed the food that was spread out on a table. His character entered a room and he saw a table loaded with ham, turkey, sweet potatoes, jello salads, apple pie, cherry pie, rhubarb pie, mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts, five bean salad, and on and on and on. My eyes glazed over. By the time the character saw his friend across the room I had to shake myself awake. There’s a character? Looking at all that food, I’d completely forgotten about the character and the story.

Then what did the author do? He immediately went into a discussion of what the friend across the room was wearing. Yellow shirt, green pants, soft leather boots….

ARGH!

When you bog a reader down with mundane details so that his eyes glaze over, instead of letting him see the room you see, you’ve made it so he can’t see anything. He starts skimming.

Instead of showing everything on the table, pick one or two things that show that table is richly laid.

The table was filled to overflowing with dishes—some steaming, some chilling in basins of ice. John, starting at one end, counted five varieties of soups. The soups gave way to meats, which yielded to salads, and finally, at the far end, were the desserts. And there, in the middle of the cookies and pies and fruity iced treats, was the one thing he’d been looking for. His birthday cake, a five layered affair, which stood three feet tall.

There is no need to mention ham and turkey and Brussels sprouts. When I wrote that bit above, I could see the steam rising and I imagined that there were roasts, swimming in gravy in those pans. When you read it, you might have imagined something totally different. You might have thought about hot, buttery vegetables in some of those dishes. Unless it’s important for me to say that it was a roast and not veggies, unless that roast plays some important role in the story, it is safe for me to allow you to dream of hot, steamed veggies on your table if you like.

By telling that there are five types of soup, and that there are more kinds of meats than just one, I’m telling you that the table is richly laid. And by setting the birthday cake apart, in the midst of lesser desserts, I’m telling the readers that 1) it’s the character’s birthday, and 2) someone rich is throwing him a big party. And, finally, by keeping John in the scene and having him move down the table, I’m keeping you connected to him and aware that this story is about him and we’re seeing through his eyes.

Why did I choose to show the variety of desserts?  The varieties  add some texture and color to the table, I think.

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