Writing That Sticks: Why the Details Matter

Taylor Pittman
Jun 5
4 min read

Writing a story is like sculpting a statue, carefully chiseling away at ideas to break them down and create something new and whole.

Stories with satisfying endings have clear foundational themes, charismatic characters, and vivid settings. The element that pulls it all together is detail. Details are specific and intentional—they should be woven into the story rather than simply added as an afterthought.

There are different kinds of details. Some are sensory, describing what the writer wants us to see, feel, taste, and touch. Others are plot-driven: moments, words, and objects that motivate the characters in obvious, or mysterious, ways. They can also foreshadow major events in the story. Regardless of how you incorporate details in your story, the goal is to ensure they count.

This month’s topic focuses on how even the most minute things can significantly impact your story. Polishing and refining your story with relevant details can evoke powerful emotions in your readers, delighting, angering, or saddening them.

Sensory Details

Sensory details are a great way to immerse readers in your world by setting the scene and narrative through the use of the five senses. They relay how your character’s favorite blanket smells, how a hot shower feels cold on their feet after playing in the snow, or how a shriek pierces their eardrums. These details describe how a character experiences the world around them in a way that resonates with the reader.

With sensory details, writers reveal how characters perceive and understand the story’s events. What things catch their eye, and say, “Look at me! I’m important.” Writers can use figurative language, such as metaphors and similes, to describe a moment or feeling, but should be wary not to dip into Purple Prose. Details should add a creative flair rather than over-explain. Let’s look at how Jen Knox uses sensory details in her aptly named short story, "Sensory Details":

“My family is a cluster of chaos in the waiting room, a bundle of odd shapes. The hospital smells of lemon and bleach. ‘Funny thing. I don’t usually eat breakfast,’ a man says to my mother. He’s wearing house shoes—half-slipper, half-sandal—and baggy jeans with a button-up shirt. Mom doesn’t appear to be listening. She looks up at me, and her eyes are feral. I’ve never seen her so afraid. As though catching my thoughts, she quickly regroups, standing to introduce me to Bud.

‘He found your vigilante sister. The idiot.’ She turns to Bud. ‘Her, not you.’

I shake his hand, sit with my good ear facing him and the other one facing Mom. Rattle, my mother, and my two brothers are all in this sterile waiting room, and we all look confused and desperate for the story. We take up the entire corner, a fourth of the room.”

The author paints the scene, using details about the hospital's smell, the appearance of the people, and the layout of the room. She brings focus to specific visuals and sounds without slowing down the pacing, and her use of figurative language to portray the stressful energy at the scene enhances her descriptions rather than over-complicating them.

Plot Related Details

Plot-related details, or elements that advance the plot in some way, can also be utilized in stories. Bringing attention to an item or phrase, particularly in terms of its impact on the characters or the world around them, helps readers connect the dots as the plot unfolds. Plot details can range from major to minor things and are the heart and soul of literary devices like:

Foreshadowing
Callbacks
And MacGuffins.

Details in Foreshadowing and Callbacks

Foreshadowing and callbacks, while similar, are reflections of each other rather than copies. Foreshadowing is bringing attention to something that hints at later events. Writers can use details to foreshadow plot twists and character development.

Callbacks are a technique where writers refer back to or mention something readers may or may not have perceived as significant. Stand-up comedians often use callbacks whenever they refer back to a punchline from a previous joke. In fiction, dialogue is a common place to experiment with callbacks—emotional or comedic—but they can be concepts, ideas, or objects. They are also used to call back to a specific detail, providing closure within a story or making people laugh in an intense moment. Either way, your readers are having a good time.

MacGuffin

Writers can use details to leave hints that help readers piece together the plot, make a statement, or misdirect the readers. MacGuffins are an excellent example of how details can be used to distract from or lead characters to their goals. MacGuffins are real or imagined items in a story that characters fixate on in some way or form. Adding them into stories is a fun use of detail that may surprise readers as their true intent in the plot is revealed. For example, the Declaration of Independence is a MacGuffin in the movie National Treasure. While finding it is the characters’ primary goal, it acts as a map and could have been interchanged with any other historically significant document. MacGuffins can also be concepts or symbols. In the popular anime, One Piece, the One Piece itself is a MacGuffin. Luffy and his pirate crew don’t know if it exists, but it is what brings them all together and pushes the plot forward. MacGuffins bring attention to something, and even if it doesn’t pertain to the overall narrative, it matters to the character; it matters to us.

You can learn more about MacGuffins later this month in Back to Basics!

Writers can use detail in many ways to tell their stories, and including the right ones is often the difference between a reader understanding or missing the main point. Fiction that uses good detail shows us that the small things can have the largest impact.

About the author:

Taylor Pittman writes everything from speculative fiction to video game cinematics. At heart, Taylor is a storyteller. Her work leans speculative, often dark, and always character-focused; she is fascinated by moments when the ordinary turns uncanny. You’ll probably find her singing karaoke, gaming, lurking in bookstores, or listening to D&D podcasts when she's not writing.