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Using Details to Create Emotional Resonance

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Jodie Nicotra

Details in writing draw readers' attention and help create emotional resonance. The key is including an adequate number of focused details that advance the narrative without overloading the reader. This is illustrated by three passages of varying detail about a rabbit in a cage. Passage 1 lacks detail and resonance, while Passage 2 uses selective details to paint a clear picture and make one detail stand out. Passage 3 provides too many details, burying the most interesting one and bogging down the reader. The goal is to engage readers through well-chosen details without over- or under-describing.

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Using Details to Create Emotional Resonance in Personal Writing
Details in writing work like selective focus in photography: they help draw readers attention to certain things and not others.
To effectively create emotional resonance in writing, you need an adequate number of details: not too many, not too few, and focused on what you want to call attention to. The details you include should help advance the story of your personal writing. Whats the story here, as told by the unusual composition?
Consider these three passages: Passage 1: The rabbit was in a cage on the table, marked for use in a scientific experiment. Passage 2: Heres a table covered with a red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. In its front paws is a carrot-stub upon which it is contentedly munching. On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8. Passage 3: The table was covered with a magenta velvet cloth that had a seam of gold running down the middle and gold fringe on the edges. On the table is a wire mesh cage with a complex locking mechanism that was about two feet long, 3 feet wide, and one-and-a-half feet tall. The cage was full of sawdust shavings, and in it was an eight- pound white domestic rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes, and the number 8 marked on its back in blue ink. It was chewing on a carrot stub, with several others scattered around the cage.
Each passage contains fairly similar information. But in Passage 1, you dont know what color the rabbit is, what kind of cage it is, what the mark looks like, etc. Because it lacks detail, this passage lacks what we might call emotional resonance. We know a piece of information, but it probably doesnt engage us all that much. Of course, its also possible that the rabbit just isnt all that important to the point of the story or the essay, so you dont need to describe it in great detail.
In Passage 2 (from Stephen Kings What Writing Is), note how the details automatically draw your attention to the rabbit by painting a clear picture in your head - and by doing so, the weirdest detail - the 8 on the rabbits back in blue ink - stands out as especially notable, maybe even ominous. It makes your readerly ears prick up - it creates anticipation for what comes next.
Passage 3 is so detailed that nothing really stands out - and arguably, the most interesting detail (the number 8) gets buried amidst all of it. Too much detail bogs the reader down, in other words; it also seems overly controlling on the writers part, because they dont allow the reader to get involved in the story by using their imagination.
Like King says, the trick is not to underdescribe or overdescribe, but to find a happy medium. You want the reader to be emotionally engaged; you also want them to focus on the correct details - the ones that really capture what youre trying to convey about the thing youre describing. Description begins in the writers imagination, but should finish in the readers(174).

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Using Details to Create Emotional Resonance

  • 1. Using Details to Create Emotional Resonance in Personal Writing
  • 2. Details in writing work like selective focus in photography: they help draw readers attention to certain things and not others.
  • 3. To effectively create emotional resonance in writing, you need an adequate number of details: not too many, not too few, and focused on what you want to call attention to. The details you include should help advance the story of your personal writing. Whats the story here, as told by the unusual composition?
  • 4. Consider these three passages: Passage 1: The rabbit was in a cage on the table, marked for use in a scientific experiment. Passage 2: Heres a table covered with a red cloth. On it is a cage the size of a small fish aquarium. In the cage is a white rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes. In its front paws is a carrot-stub upon which it is contentedly munching. On its back, clearly marked in blue ink, is the numeral 8. Passage 3: The table was covered with a magenta velvet cloth that had a seam of gold running down the middle and gold fringe on the edges. On the table is a wire mesh cage with a complex locking mechanism that was about two feet long, 3 feet wide, and one-and-a-half feet tall. The cage was full of sawdust shavings, and in it was an eight- pound white domestic rabbit with a pink nose and pink-rimmed eyes, and the number 8 marked on its back in blue ink. It was chewing on a carrot stub, with several others scattered around the cage.
  • 5. Each passage contains fairly similar information. But in Passage 1, you dont know what color the rabbit is, what kind of cage it is, what the mark looks like, etc. Because it lacks detail, this passage lacks what we might call emotional resonance. We know a piece of information, but it probably doesnt engage us all that much. Of course, its also possible that the rabbit just isnt all that important to the point of the story or the essay, so you dont need to describe it in great detail.
  • 6. In Passage 2 (from Stephen Kings What Writing Is), note how the details automatically draw your attention to the rabbit by painting a clear picture in your head - and by doing so, the weirdest detail - the 8 on the rabbits back in blue ink - stands out as especially notable, maybe even ominous. It makes your readerly ears prick up - it creates anticipation for what comes next.
  • 7. Passage 3 is so detailed that nothing really stands out - and arguably, the most interesting detail (the number 8) gets buried amidst all of it. Too much detail bogs the reader down, in other words; it also seems overly controlling on the writers part, because they dont allow the reader to get involved in the story by using their imagination.
  • 8. Like King says, the trick is not to underdescribe or overdescribe, but to find a happy medium. You want the reader to be emotionally engaged; you also want them to focus on the correct details - the ones that really capture what youre trying to convey about the thing youre describing. Description begins in the writers imagination, but should finish in the readers(174).