use of detail in fiction

It turns out that those monster thighs and herding tendencies that Amy, Diana’s chicken, was developing made a lot of sense. You didn’t even have to notice the red comb on top of her head; Amy cleared her throat and let out the first crows right after Diana and her husband Nik returned from England. […]

One thing I’ve learned is that most of us are passionate about a couple of things and how much those interests emerge as defining parts of our identities. I don’t know exactly when I fell in love with being able to identify, for example, the wildflowers that right now have turned the forest floor into […]

To those readers in winter-affected areas: is the weather making everything feel like extra work to you? It is to me. Just getting dressed is a shivering labor involving long underwear under my jeans, a fleece over my shirt, wool socks as thick as my thumb. Preparing to actually leave the house, say to walk Hannah? […]

Let’s go back to the slushy dark afternoon of my first post. Remember how I played sleuth and trailed the SUV? Already the painting on the back window had generated the makings of a plot. But a bit of tailgating yielded extra details: the birth date was Dec. 31, 2001, and the date of death […]

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” (Henry Miller) We have slogged through the winter solstice. Long fingers of twilight still reach up and take early hold of the afternoon of a sleety, biting day. Gray slush blends the […]