The value of detail to a writer

[John Dean]

I have mused in previous blogs about the role played by detail in writing and, as my latest DCI Jack Harris novel passes 25,000 words (authors are great ones for milestones!), I have yet again been reminded of the part it can play in plot development.

During the writing process on the book, I had written various short scenes and fleeting references which did not seem to bear much relation to the story and instead came over as un-developed space fillers – an anecdote from Harris’s military past, a middle-ranking officer’s thoughts on the nature of command, a young man’s fears for his naive grandfather in a world in which criminals prey on trusting elderly people, and a crime with seemingly nothing to connect it with the murder which is being investigated by Harris and his team and which provides the main thrust of the story.

As I kept writing, though, each snippet found a similar one and they bonded together rather in the way that pieces of a jigsaw snap together to create a bigger picture. Two would find three, three would find four….

The result? Each small detail has grown into a strand of the plot that gives the book greater substance and more cohesion – oh, and helped me to race past that 25,000-word mark as well!