How To Engage Readers With Details
Seasoned writers always advise to write with as much detail as you can manage. That’s because specifics manages to engage reader’s imaginations much more than abstract concepts. It’s hard to feel anything for “a four-legged creature,” but it’s easy to be sympathetic to the “poor, injured Joey, a German Shepherd at the veterinary.”
Details, when properly employed (and checked by a grammar software) are the ones that allow readers to create a vision of what the writer is saying. The more of them you use, the more vivid their picture is going to get. As such, you should always use details whenever available. Don’t say that you “spilled beer” when you can say that you “tipped the Bud Light over and it dripped through the bar.” That makes a huge difference.
Given the choice between two ways to express a subject, always choose the one with more specifics. When you’re trying to improve the way your text reads, this is one of the areas you should always be looking into.
As you comb through your text and notice your subjects, try to ask yourself if there is a more specific way to express it. The “old laptop on the table” can always be “a ragged old Powerbook that’s seen better days.” Notice how much richer the text sounds by just infusing it with a little more detail?
The only time to forego using specifics is when you don’t know enough to write it. While you may want to write what brand of toothpaste your interviewee used, you can’t really put it down to paper if you forgot to ask. Even so, always attempt to find the most specific way to relay a message – it can end up making or breaking your copy.