RKYV #6 - Details Matter

Column 6 - Creation In Our World: Details Matter

A very happy New Year, readers! I hope your holiday season was an enjoyable one. Mine was amazingly decent, considering the years of personal trauma my house has to offer in memory storage.

There was, however, one thing not related to the past that bothered me. I noticed it when I was eating my chocolate. Who remembers the days when you opened a wrapper decorated with a Santa, and inside the chocolate was detailed with lines that recreated the Santa in your chocolate?

Sadly, the Santa chocolate I had was line-less, a simple mundane piece of chocolate without a defining figure. The details that created the tiny image were gone.

I was appalled at first. Where was the effort to create something wonderful for eaters? Where was the attempt to bring a smile to the person’s face when they saw how much energy went into their food to remind them of good old St. Nick? Clearly if they bought chocolate with a Santa wrapper there was no need to worry about offending them with political correctness.

It didn’t take me long to make a connection back to the art of writing I myself miss at the moment. We can have a fantastic idea in our heads, but let’s admit it: without the details to complete it, we aren’t going to go far in a book.

Details need to be everywhere. The character design in writing ought to have a fairly good background to make it consistent. Even when no one reads your character profile, the writers themselves ought to know everything possible. The scene must be set and no room must be left for confusion.

Even you artists out there can’t abandon detail. There can be a minimum number of defining lines in the artwork, but let’s admit it – there’s always at least one.

I can’t go too into depth myself with this one, unfortunately. Every writer and artist has his or her own style, so I can’t critique everyone as a whole. What I can safely say is that, just like the lines on my Santa chocolate were missed, the details in your works will be missed if you don’t put forth the effort into them.

Work hard to make your craft as complete as possible.

Happy New Year,
Larissa