It's All in the Details

I was talking to a friend of mine at work about fiction and he mentioned a problem he'd had when trying to write a story as opposed to telling a story.  In his experience it was very easy to verbally tell someone a convincing enough story that they enjoyed, but when trying to write it down, he just didn't have enough to say.  There could be a lot at work here, for instance the adage of showing rather telling applies in this situation, and there's also something to be said about giving your characters difficulty as a means of creating a story.  But I think the devil is really in the details here.

For instance, someone asks me what I thought of the burger place downtown.  I say, "It was great.  Good food, good service." That's how we talk to each other--we largely exchange judgements.  It's what we do as humans.  It is for this reason that I don't consider writing conversational.  Let's consider the same experience written into narration.

"I stopped at the burger restaurant on the corner.  The burger was well-seasoned and juicy and the fries were cooked until they were crisp.  The waitress took my order quickly and returned with my food without making me wait."

As a reader we can create our own judgement here that the narrator enjoyed the restaurant even though it's not openly stated.  But you'll notice a sort of blandness about the scene.  Now it's not just that the scene has an utter lack of conflict, though that is a serious problem, but it would also be that there are no details.  The more specific the details the closer we get to the narrative and the more the elements of the scene become valuable.  Let's try throwing some concrete details into the scene but try to keep the content the same.

"I found the parking lot for Michelangelo's Gourmet Burgers on the corner of Condor and 3rd street.  The low firebrick building sagged in its place near the street, windows painted to show the name and a chalkboard to display the daily specials.  A redheaded waitress in her twenties smiled at me as she tied a maroon apron around her waist.  The name tag said her name was Cindy.  She asked what I would be having that afternoon and I ordered the Rodeo burger.  A short moment later, the burger arrived on a toasted cheddar and potato bun and the bacon was cooked crisp but not burnt.  The french fries had been tossed in a homemade garlic sauce with fresh parsley thrown in.  They were hot and still crispy."

Remarkably this is largely still the same content as "It was great." but now we see it through our character's eyes.  We see imagery and details that help tell the story and make it important to us as readers.