Had to pick between describing a character's room or their morning routine in my short story

I was stuck on a scene in a flash fiction piece about a guy who fixes old neon signs. I couldn't figure out whether to spend two paragraphs describing his workshop with all those glowing tubes and bent glass, or show him making coffee at 5 AM with his shaky hands and a busted percolator. I went with the morning routine because I figured the room details could get sprinkled in later when he actually works on a sign. Turns out that choice let me show his patience and his frustration way better than any description of a dusty shelf ever could. The scene ended up getting picked up by a small lit mag after I submitted it to three places. Has anyone else had a similar fork in the road where you picked character action over setting and it just clicked?

3 comments

3 Comments

miasanchez1d ago

Did you find that scene ended up writing itself faster once you stopped worrying about the lampshades and workbench? lol. My rule of thumb is if I'm spending more time deciding how to describe a thing than actually writing the thing, I'm probably overthinking it. The morning coffee with shaky hands tells me everything about that character's day ahead, while a glowing tube just tells me he has good taste in lighting. I've started asking myself "what would this person do first thing" and letting that pull the reader in before I ever mention the wallpaper or the broken clock.

ericcraig1d ago

Had a similar thing with a story about a lady who keeps bees. I spent hours describing her hives and the honey frames, then realized showing her trying not to step on a single bug on her way to the mailbox told you way more about her than any equipment list ever could.

miles_robinson201d ago

Something that really clicked for me after reading this, and I think @miasanchez kind of hinted at it with the coffee thing, is how much our own assumptions about what matters can kill a scene. We get it in our heads that the reader needs to know the technical specs of a thing because we find the technical specs interesting. But a character who rescues every spider she finds in the house tells me more about her core nature than a full chapter on her apiary setup ever could. Your mileage may vary, but I've found that if I write the small action first and then see if the description still matters, I end up cutting about 80% of the background noise. That bug-saving moment is a perfect example because it shows her respect for life without a single lecture. It's the kind of detail that makes me trust the writer knows who their character is.