How to Punch Up a Story with Detail
By: Sarah Boorboor
As humans, we learn about the world through our five senses. That is why, when crafting a story, it is vital to include descriptive and sensory detail, to allow your audience to follow you on the ride you would like to take them on. Buckle up!
When telling a story at an Unravel live show, you must keep within a 6-10 minute time frame. One knee jerk reaction to this time constraint is to cut out detail to make room for plot. But too much plot can get confusing and difficult to follow if a story’s scenes do not come to life with small details.
Details in writing can follow the Goldilocks method, there is such thing as too little, too much, and just right.
We want to help you to get the details in your story ‘just right’ and will do so by highlighting a storyteller from our MAN UP September live show, Sam Silverman, who’s final draft landed in that oh so right detail zone.
The tone of Sam’s story was lighthearted and humorous, a self-deprecating tale about his first kiss at summer camp with a girl named Rochelle. Though the subject matter seems ordinary (most of us have had a first kiss), Sam took us all back to camp with him through his use of vivid descriptive details, which made the story uniquely his own.
This is Sam Shepard at our September 2019 ‘Man Up’ Live Show
Here’s an example from Sam’s story:
“Then, just as I am about to head out of the bathroom, Zack—who is slathering globs of blue Gatorade colored hair gel into his bangs to flip them up—calls over to me.
‘Hey man, so are you ready for tonight? Like, you know what to do with your tongue?’
‘I think I’m good – I just sorta move it around, right?’
Zack looks back at me with this face full of both empathy and pity as all the other guys in the bathroom circle up around us as though from some special magnetic force developed by the mention of kissing girls.’’
In describing Zack’s hair gel as ‘blue Gatorade colored,’ the audience can already picture this young boy who thinks he’s got it all figured out. We can quickly infer everything Sam wanted to us to know about this character just through this small detail he’s chosen to include.
Additionally, describing the boys circling up in the bathroom ‘as if by some magnetic force’ allows us to imagine the scene and the sense of helplessness Sam felt approaching this daunting task: his first kiss.
Here’s an example of 'too little' detail:
“Then, just as I am about to head out of the bathroom, Zack calls over to me:
‘Hey man, so are you ready for tonight? Like, you know what to do with your tongue?’
‘I think I’m good – I just sorta move it around, right?’
Zack looks back at me with pity as all the other guys circle up around us.”
In this example, we (as the audience) cannot summon a mental picture of Zack and we cannot picture where and how the boys are circling up, they are gathering in a vacuum
Here’s an example of 'too much' detail:
“Then, just as I am about to head out of the bathroom, Zack—who is 5’4 and 14 years old sits by the mirror slathering globs of greenish blue Gatorade colored hair gel into his long bangs to flip them up ridiculously—calls over to me.”
You get the idea—if there are too many descriptors we can get lost along the way. There is no need for the audience to gather all of this information about Zack, it will just confuse us.
In storytelling, peppering in the right amount of detail keeps your audience engaged and helps relay meaning. A big thanks to Sam Silverman for showing this so gloriously at our MAN UP live show and for letting us share a section of his piece in this Unravel It.