Details, Details, and More Details
If you want to write fiction and you want it to have the ring of truth, you need to permeate the work with details. This is what brings the writing alive and makes it believable for the reader. With nonfiction, there can never be enough details to make the work complete, because that is the heart and soul of writing nonfiction.
Consider the following description of a group of firefighters in the best selling and award-winning book Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean (author of A River Runs Through It), which recounts the story of the Mann Gulch fire that claimed the lives of a brave band of firefighters:
“They crawled out of their jump suits that made them look part spacemen and part football players. In 1949 they even wore regular leather football helmets; then there was wire mesh all over their faces, the padded canvas suit (with damn little padding), and logger boots…. Their work clothes, unlike their jump suits, were their own, and they were mostly just ordinary work clothes — Levis and blue shirts, but hard hats. None in this crew appeared in white shirts and oxfords.”
Just think of what Maclean's attention to details accomplishes: the reader is drawn into the scene and narrative; the author conveys a mastery over the facts that results in a convincing portrayal of the events; the reader is made to feel that the author is believable and trustworthy because he took the time and trouble to gather this material. Details are the lifeblood of nonfiction and you must dispense them with skill and art.
