Using the Little Details

Click for a closer view of listed areas and details.

Johnny Cupcakes did a great job on the ice cream packages such as the sense of volume. Also, look at the suggested pressed lines in the ends. You get a sense of texture, making the image seem more tangible.

I appreciate that little detail because I do not enjoy reading descriptions that stray from the story too much and disrupt the flow.

For example, in I Robot: To Protect, the amount of detail given to food annoyed me most during a conversation. The narrator stated delight in the person on this date, but her attention was more on the food. Each described bite felt like a tree in my way as I tried to follow the conversation's direction.

Therefore, I try to describe to illustrate a character's feelings or to set the tone. If I describe to help the reader imagine an object, then giving tangible details like Johnny's pressed lines help the reader remember having felt the object before. Kudos to you if your readers feel as if they have held that object without having touched or seen it before.

The only thing I would change in Johnny's image is to make an edge of the package bend. This detail makes the representation less perfect, but more familiar. He wanted perfect symmetry though. Plus the package bend can draw your eye away from the main content.

Thank you to my sister for the Snickers ice cream bar at this moment. Now for ice cream that I can actually experience.

Troy & Abed Shirt

I have a lot to blog about including Johnny Cupcakes! But for this post, I'm going to return to Megan Lara who has done Art Nouveau style T-shirts.

"Dope Adventures" T-shirt

Today on TeeFury.com, Megan Lara has a T-shirt of Troy and Abed from Community in the styled of the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes."
At first I was a little disappointed that they don't look much like Troy and Abed. But then I thought about their relationship. Troy is the boyish innocent one while Abed is the rational one. So Megan Lara matched up the personalities well.

And then I looked at the details. If you know Troy and Abed, then you will appreciate the comic title "Kick-Puncher." =) They have also like blanket forts, and they now room in one in at the end of season 3. The little mug says "Special drink,"  which I think refers to Abed's chocolate milk recipe. So Megan Lara has succeeded in putting Troy and Abed elements in the "Calvin and Hobbes" setting.

You can get the shirt HERE for $10, but only for 8.5 more hours of today. The web page has a countdown for the duration of the shirt sale. Afterwards the shirt will no longer be sold at TeeFury. You will have to find the shirt on another website, which will sell the shirt for at least $20.

Here's a picture of "Calvin and Hobbes" for those of you who need an introduction to them:

Calvin and Hobbes

You can read the comic strips in book volumes now. Some adventures, including the great ones, last more than one strip. The names were chosen from philosophers John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes the tiger is actually a stuffed animal that Calvin imagines as a real tiger and his best friend.

There's no fooling myself now that I'm nostalgic and sentimental. I will get the shirt!

Beauty in the Familiar

When I edit a story, (like my Machine of Death entry) I refer to Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark. I refer to it like a checklist of ways to strengthen your writing. The book works for any form of written material.

One concept is to describe something ordinary and familiar as extraordinary.  "...[D]efamiliarization, a hopeless word that describes the process by which an author takes the familiar and makes it strange." Specific details can make the object seem unfamiliar to reader either because of one of the following:

*had a vague image when they read the object's name,
*have not seen the object in person (maybe just on TV),
*or have not notice the object's qualities before.

Here's a microphoto of grains of sand:

See how the familiar can become extraordinary and unfamiliar?  I don't mean for you to put everything under a microscope but think of what objects we overlook and what details make that object.

For more about the photo, click here.