Specific beats general every time. “Love” is a word. “She saved you the last fry” is a feeling.

CREATIVITY

WHAT THIS MEANS

Abstractions ask the audience to supply the feeling themselves, and most of them will not bother. A concrete detail does the work instead, because it puts something in front of a person that they can see, and the emotion arrives attached to it. Big words name feelings; small facts produce them.

Go through what you have written and find every general term standing in for something you could show. Replace three of them with one detail each. If the detail feels too small or too odd to include, that is usually a sign you have found the right one.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

When did a tiny detail tell you more than a summary?

MORE IN CREATIVITY & ORIGINALITY

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