The Devil is in the Details

Perfectionism is not one of my strong points. I know because I have a couple of family members to whom that overriding drive is a continual plague on their existence (at least, from my point of view).

Even so, the crooked picture frame will irk me, just as a handful of other subjects will garner an over-attentive eye from me. Among these – and you likely guessed it – is writing. Time stops when I have the magnifying glass over the current work in progress. Everything has to be perfect, right off! (With blog posts, I'll warn you that I'm not so particular. So cease with thy critical eye!)

You don't have to tell me how unrealistic those expectations are. I know the point of the first draft is to get it out on paper, not produce a flawless manuscript. On one hand, I could chalk it up to those insecurities that prompt me to research definitions that are a no-duh just to reassure myself I'm not going to commit some unconscious blunder.

On the other, more complicated hand, I strive for realism in my stories, so that if my protagonist is a nuclear scientist, my reader will feel like they've entered the field of a physicist. Don't worry, I'll forgo bogging the plot down with excessive detail; I also aim for balance. But I do want you to know who this character is, where they've come from, and how their strengths will help the novel along, not leave you with an off-hand comment about their background that you'll forget down the road.

So far, so good, right? Then, my personality enters the picture. If my protagonist is an expert in a certain subject, I must fully understand the ins and outs of this profession as well. That way I'll know what tidbits to incorporate in rounding out the character's knowledge.

Unfortunately, I overextend myself to where I'm scouring the internet over where a Dodge Challenger holds its battery, and the brand name and model of said battery!

After all that, I recline in my chair and question, “Is this even necessary?” More often than not, the answer is no, and I could've spared myself the trouble by writing something a little more vague. But I'm often warned of this personal problem when others spot me on the search engine warpath.

At times I'm not going over the top, though, and I truly need to understand how this mechanism works in order to describe it. It's just that my mind won't rest until I can understand it thoroughly!

A few years ago, I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which I enjoyed immensely. The one drawback, though I hesitate to pronounce anything negative of Jules Verne's work, was the technical descriptions. Talk about details!

I admire Verne's grasp of science, and how it produces geniuses for his characters, but I stumbled over the complicated dialogues about how the atmospheres compound with the deeper you travel underwater, adding that much more pressure to the submarine, et cetera, because I wouldn't allow myself to just run over the text and go on - I had to understand how it worked!

I can't resist the opportunity to learn, and there's quite a bit of random trivia I could spout that I'd previously not realized had a name. Well, if knowledge is power then I'm aiming to be a monarch.

Everyone has their areas of specialty they nitpick over. And I'm simply a writer who aspires to give the reader a genuine experience for their buck. That said, my siblings have joked about my obsession with “living out” my characters' lives, “worrying” over when I write a book about a psychopathic killer!

So here's me, trying to find a happy medium with realism while not over-researching every. little. thing.

Is there an area in your life you need to have perfect?

Or what do you prefer in a good book – more or less detail?

~Alissa