Significant and Sensory Details

Avoiding Abstractions in Narrative

An essential technique extracted from studies on character design and setting to avoid abstractions in narrative writing.

What is it?

In fiction writing, the golden rule “Show, don’t tell” directs that the focus should not be on the author’s abstractions or judgments, but rather on felt experience. A significant detail is simultaneously concrete (it appeals to one or more of the five senses) and expressive (it conveys an idea, value, judgment, or shift in a character’s emotional state).

Instead of labeling an emotion (“she was terrified”), the narrative focuses on the body’s physical reactions and specific environmental details to generate emotional resonance.

How to apply it to my short story?

• Use active verbs and avoid filters: Reduce the use of linking verbs (“to be”, “to seem”, “to appear”) and eliminate unnecessary sensory filters (like “she noticed”, “he saw”, “she felt”). Instead of “He felt the room was cold”, write “A chill raised the hairs on his arms”.
• Communicate through the five senses: Engage sight, but do not forget hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Describe the rough texture of a wet coat, the metallic taste of blood, or the smell of mildew.
• Accumulate meaning: Choose details that reveal the character’s social class, past, desires, or vulnerabilities, bypassing extensive paragraphs of direct exposition.

⚠️ Common traps / What not to do

• Generic descriptive lists: Avoid paragraphs that look like police bulletins (“tall, blue eyes, gray coat”). This fails to individualize the character.
• Abstract shortcuts: Don’t try to summarize complex feelings with just labels. “She felt shocked” robs the reader of the chance to experience the shock alongside the character.
• Too many adjectives and adverbs: Intense modifiers (“extremely”, “terribly”) weaken prose. Trust strong nouns and verbs.

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