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.

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.

Personify

I once tested out the filters on my camera phone in my backyard and came up with this movie trailer spoof:

I was just messing around until I saw how the first photo shown looked like a drama to me. So I messed around more to create a story.  It was fun and received laughs from family and friends.  I had also personified the animals by making them human-like in a relationship drama context.

I still like how a story can be created with anything.

In my Visual Cultures class, I found examples of personification through Edward Gorey's."The Animated Tragedy" (a page is shown below) and "Bug Book."

For my final in that class, I decided to make a comic on personified objects. Because I like the look of poker cards, I chose them as my objects. So I made a drama about cards moving closer and away from each other as a hand of cards.

I aimed to keep the captions casual and like a children's book as I saw Edward Gorey did for even his dark stories. I never mentioned the affair after the title.

For the final, I had printed out black and white.  Since then I photoshopped the images to make them more flat and give more dramatic lighting.  The piece will go in my school magazine. =)  Once again, I had fun. and I hope I do more personified works. What do you think?

If you're interested in Edward Gorey, then I recommend Amphigorey.