Little Details - Part Two

40 Degrees this morning with an expected high of 77 degrees. Woo-hoo! Now what in the heck does any of that have to do with a blog about writing? Well, it’s all in the little details.

How often is the weather mentioned in your writing? Do you make it a point of giving some indication – chilly, cool, hot, humid, sweltering, so hot you could fry an egg on your windshield, damp, moist, cloudy, dreary – of the weather in your writing? Do you mention that Sally is wearing a sweater because it is 33 degrees in May, in Tennessee (or wherever your story takes place)?

Do you mention any of the following . . .

• condensation on margarita pitcher
• congealing cheese dip
• salsa dripping off the chip and onto your character's pristine, neatly pressed and lightly starched white button down Oxford
• lukewarm coffee - character is walking around, sipping coffee, doing this, that, and whatever, then takes a drink and - blech - the coffee is lukewarm or cold
• waking up to sound of cat hacking up hairball
• stepping on said hacked up hairball the next morning because character was too lazy to get out of bed and clean it up at 2 AM
• opening bottle of wine
• commenting about taste of wine
• going to bathroom (no, not all the gory details - just a reference i'm distended and must void as a character, perhaps, stands up from the table in the restaurant and walks away, out of the scene)
• washing dishes
• noticing people - i.e., Jane notices that the man with the nice pecs has on a nice blue shirt, or his jeans are tight and showing off his assets
• the color of the margaritas - trust me, some nights they are nuclear green, and some nights their a more safe to drink color
• the taste of the margaritas as in whoa, did someone get carried away with the lime juice!!!

Just like the character details mentioned in this post, I try to mention the little details about life in my writing. I want my characters/situations as real as possible. My characters are known to make snarky comments about going to the bathroom. I have gone into detail about a character opening a bottle of wine or going blech when he/she took a sip of cold coffee. I have two characters that every night, after dinner, wash and dry the dishes together. It is a routine. They talk about the day or whatever as they do the dishes. It is one of their rituals as a couple. Washing dishes is one of their bonding moments of their day.

I firmly believe that every story needs the little details of life to make it more real, even if the story takes place on some far distant world or in a kingdom of Elves or beneath the sea. The little details weave the threads of the story together into a believable - at least in my opinion - tapestry.

So, my question: do you infuse your story with the little details of life? If not, why? If so, what are some of the details?

S