Get very specific

One of my favorite revision rounds is the one where I take the vague sentences and make them specific. It's usually an early round -- the second or third. (For the record, my absolute favorite revision round is the last or second-to-last one, where I get to hone sentences and delete repetitive words. It's like tying a big bow on the manuscript.)

The first draft is all about getting the story down. I don't worry about making the jokes perfect, just about getting the joke in there generally. But in later revision rounds, the way I hone the joke is to make it more specific. In an early round I might say "Waldo thought all the rocks looked like muffins." But later I'd revise it to something like "Waldo thought the rocks looked like blueberry muffins that had been left behind the refrigerator too long."

Then I'd probably make that dialog (because I love dialog), and I could extend the joke by having a response.

"Those rocks look like blueberry muffins that have lived behind the refrigerator for six months," said Waldo.
"I still want to eat one," said Sassy. "New muffins are better but old muffins are fine."

When I was rewriting it as dialog right now, I realized I could make "too long" into something more specific ("six months") and that that was funnier too. It's funny to think that Waldo would know what a six-month-old moldy muffin would look like. That he might have personal experience.

I'm working on the almost-final revision for the third Two Dogs book now (my favorite revision stage!), but I've been thinking about this issue of specificity since the last revisions. Once the story started to get on track, I could put in the specifics, and it's a great time to get super silly.

I'm going to share a specific detail I love from this book because it's been cut (the plot changed a bit). In earlier drafts Waldo (as Salty, the human student that he pretends to be when he stacks up on Sassy and puts on a trench coat) generally said he could smell a squirrel. In later versions, that changed to Bax very specifically saying what squirrels smell like.

“Excuse me, did you say something about a squirrel?” asked the guard in the gem room, taking out a notepad. “A squirrel has been causing chaos and havoc in this museum, wearing boots and spilling crackers. Could you describe it?”
“Squirrels are usually gray, and they have big fluffy tails, and rub their little hands together like this,” said Waldo. “They put acorns in their cheek pouches and save stores of food for winter.”
“They smell like nuts in a cat backpack,” said Bax.
“What?” said the guard.
“I said,” said Bax, “they smell like nuts in a cat backpack.”
“Yeah, it didn’t make any sense the second time either,” said the guard. “I’m going to have to call for backup.”
“You do that,” said Waldo. “And we are also going to backup. Backup really slowly out of this room and go to another room entirely.”

You know how the trick to not using a cliché is to rewrite the cliché so that it's something entirely new and not a cliché anymore? (Like, instead of "she looked like something the cat dragged in" you write "she looked like she'd been at a rodeo in the rain and hadn't had time to shower.") That's the trick to using specifics too. Your job as a writer is to walk that line between new and familiar. You want your writing to be both fresh and surprising, but also recognizable enough in some way (a resonating emotion or sense) that the reader nods along. You know, like "nuts in a cat backpack."

You'd think you'd reach more readers by being general, but the opposite is true. The more specific you are, the realer the description seems, so the more it will ring true to the reader. Especially if you're writing about something the reader doesn't have personal experience with; specificity paints a truer picture for them, and in understanding how it all works, they'll connect. 

Perhaps you're wondering how this might work in a picture book? The magic of picture books is that the illustrations can carry a huge load as far as conveying specific details. So the text doesn't have to be loaded with them. Specificity in picture book text comes in word choice. In a story with so few words, each word has to carry its weight. It has to convey the right tone and the right meaning, and it has to sound good read aloud. So the illustration might show a towering pile of specific forest-related ice cream flavors, but the words only say "Here's the ice cream! Shove it all in the freezer before it melts!" The illustration has most of the specifics, but the text (and words like "shove") work together to connect with the reader.

Specifics are funny in what I write, but they don't only work for humor. Specifics heighten the core emotion of whatever it is you're writing. A scary story is made scarier by being specific about the fright. A sad story is more heartbreaking because of specific sorrowful details. Go through your manuscript and try it. Find all the vague things and make them specific, and see how it ramps up the emotion. And let me know how it goes!