The wrong kind of details: the components of wonder (aka lmp's rant)

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Wonderful topic, littlemanpoet! This will be very enjoyable to read. I agree with Kuruharan that a lot of authors' attempts to add details are awkward, to say the least. Less is often more.

Offhand, a great example from LotR occurs to me: JRRT often adds just one adjective and creates an atmosphere with it. I hadn't noticed it consciously until my last rereading of the book. It's the mention of moon phases. When his characters look at the moon, it's the "waxing" or "waning" moon. That's all he says, no big description, but just that gives the passage a feeling of motion, of the passing of time with the moon phases. I do remember reading (biography?) that he payed attention to those and corrected if necessary. It happens in the interwoven passages too, when different characters are separated and looking up at the same moon.

Subtlety is the key - it has to seem incidental to be good, I think.