"Application of Detail Description" in Literary Writing

Detail description is a detailed description of the details of the description object. Detail is the smallest unit to describe people, things, social environment and natural scenery in literary works.

People, events and environments in literary works cannot form vivid and complete stories and fascinating artistic conception without detailed description. Through the description of typical details that are true, unique, vivid and sensible, the works can avoid vague preaching and straightforward expression; Can vividly highlight the characters and enrich their images; Can vividly and effectively connect stories and form character relationships; It can set off the atmosphere of the environment, render the modality of the characters, and increase the vividness and life flavor of the works. Detail description in the whole literary works, although it belongs to "one branch and one leaf", is ugly without necessary and sufficient support for the branches and leaves. It can be said that there is no perfect literary work without detailed description.

The object of detail description is very extensive, and all kinds of phenomena in the world, trivial things in daily life, characters' looks, clothes and manners, a corner of social environment and subtle phenomena in nature can all be used as details. However, as the details in the works, we should choose them according to the needs of conception, the performance of specific characters and the development needs of specific things. Being good at choosing and describing details, even a small gesture can highlight the image and personality of the characters. For example, Chekhov described it in detail in Outside the Mill:

"Mom!" He cried.

The old lady was dazed and looked back. The miller quickly reached into his pocket and took out a big wallet. ...

"Well, this is for you ..." He said vaguely, taking out a handful of bills and silver coins from his wallet. "Take it!"

He rubbed the money in his hand. For some reason, he looked back at the monk and then rubbed his money. Tickets and silver coins leaked through his fingers and returned to his wallet one by one, leaving only a coin of 20 kopecks in his hand ... The miller looked at it, touched it with his fingers, then coughed, turned purple and handed it to his mother.

(Excerpted from Chekhov's The Man in the Condom, translated by Ru Long, Anhui Literature and Art Publishing House, 1999 edition).

Here, the author chooses "a wallet" as the detail of life, and reveals the despicable soul and ugly image of this character by describing the little tricks such as rubbing, leaking, looking and touching when the miller takes money.

Another example is Lu Xun's The True Story of Ah Q, which describes the details of Ah Q's drawing a circle on the execution ground, and the implication is also very profound. With humor and exaggeration, the author depicts Ah Q's character, which is sometimes arrogant and sometimes arrogant. Ah Q made a bet on his execution, and he was also annoyed that the circle was not round. However, this was only a temporary shame, and he soon thought, "Sun Tzu drew a very round circle." So he won another "victory" mentally.

The same is true in the lobby. The bald old man is still sitting on it, and Ah Q is still kneeling.

……

So a long-sleeved figure took a piece of paper and sent a pen to Ah Q in his hand. Ah Q was shocked at this moment, almost "stunned": because his hand is related to the pen, this is the first time. He doesn't know how to accept it; The man pointed to a place and taught him to draw flowers.

"I ... I ... don't understand." Ah Q grabbed the pen and said with fear and shame.

"So, it's cheap, draw a circle!"

Ah Q wants to draw a circle, but his hand holding the pen is just shaking. So the man spread the paper on the ground for him, and Ah Q fell down and drew a circle with all his strength. Afraid of being laughed at, he decided to draw a circle, but the hateful pen was not only heavy but also disobedient. I almost closed it with a shake, but I shrugged my shoulders and painted it like a melon seed.

Ah Q was ashamed that his painting was not round, but the man didn't care. He has chosen a pen and paper, and many people arrested him for the second time.

When he entered the fence for the second time, he was not very depressed. He thought that heaven and earth in life sometimes had to be caught in and out, and sometimes a circle had to be drawn on paper, but the circle was not a circle, but a stain on his "line". But after a while, he was relieved. He thought, Sun Tzu just drew a very round circle. So he fell asleep.

(Selected from Lu Xun's The True Story of Ah Q-Selected Novels of Lu Xun, China Federation of Literary and Art Circles Publishing Company, 1995 edition)

The details of "drawing a circle" have brought Ah Q's ignorance, self-deception and tragic fate to the extreme. Such details are unforgettable, not only thrilling, but also thought-provoking.

A large number of facts in the history of literature have proved that proper description of life details can not only vividly reproduce the characteristics of things and help to shape and reveal the typical environment, but also reflect the habits, will, hobbies, emotions, temperament and inner activities of characters naturally, appropriately and subtly, which is conducive to the shaping of characters, the display of personality characteristics and the enhancement of artistic appeal of works.

There is no fixed way to describe the details. The richness and vividness of life determine the richness and diversity of details; And the ever-changing description technique also makes the detail description have its own characteristics. Whether the details can be written well depends on whether the author has a keen and meticulous observation of life and an accurate and vivid description ability.

The details should be typical and true. The so-called typical refers to the details described, which are widely representative, and can reflect the general and the whole picture through individual and small things, and reveal the essence through phenomena. The so-called truth is to naturally reflect the essence, characteristics and inevitability of the development of things without violating things. Only a typical and true description of the details is conducive to the shaping of characters, the development of plots, the rendering of environmental atmosphere and the expression of works' intentions.

It should be noted that the description of details should not be trivial. Redundant details often dilute the idea of the work and affect its integrity and artistry. The detailed description must meet the needs of the conception of the work.

Primitive reading

The night the moth was buried.

yu dafu

Neurasthenia is probably caused by too many boring leisure days.

Tired of "health" is indeed a root of this fashionable disease; Or conversely, just like a feeling of emptiness in the mouth after a fever, this feeling of emptiness in life is a symptom of neurasthenia, and so is it.

In short, since the summer, this symptom seems to be getting worse every day; After moving, of course, this disease also moved with me.

Although it can't be said that it is a recuperation, the newly moved cabin really has a little pastoral interest. Autumn is coming, and it's time to be the most emotional near this hut and the border between civilization and wildness. The sound is autumn, and the color is of course autumn.

Let me tell you why I moved here first.

I don't know when, after being printed with "Cain's seal", the society that usually goes in and out disappeared and I dare not go. Of course, there are many layers of society, but there seem to be many explanations for the title.

The most important explanation is treason. In a country where officials are everything, the political interpretation of this "seal" could have included other things. But not necessarily. Human beings like vagueness best, and they also like to distinguish when necessary.

So the second explanation came, as if it was about the "times" and said "outdated". It is the wisdom of modern people that the north and south poles of the sky can be used at the same time.

Reciprocating between the two poles, the old and the new can be used together. This is the third explanation, which is the so-called "moral inversion".

But if you touch your forehead, you can't even touch this "Cain seal", let alone these explanations. Or the thief has a guilty conscience and thinks he has committed a big crime, so it is called compulsion complex. There is nothing wrong with peace in the world. People with neurasthenia can always be disturbed by themselves. Therefore, cutting off friends and leaving relatives and friends, just like the elves at the bottom of hell, dare not show their faces and can only be left alone in the evil wind. According to Democritus Robert Burton Jr.' s analysis, this may be the most correct symptom of depression.

Because I carried such a cross on my back, I learned to walk in a year, and everything around me was moving. At the end of spring and March, I occasionally saw some shallow flat bridges, weeping willows and crows outside the train window, and suddenly remembered that this place is neither a city nor a rural boundary. I rented this cabin and moved some old books, even in early May. But it's early autumn again. How time flies! How time flies!

Around the front of the hut, except for a road that diagonally crosses things, there are all mottled vacant lots. On a ridge of brown soil, there are some candel and cowpea, and now it is the season when cotton is half open. The best thing is to push it to the top and wrap it tightly. The color is blue with white, and there is a fluffy white fog outside. There is always purple on the stems of vegetables. Lettuce called by foreigners (English, meaning "lettuce") is a kind of big leaf cabbage. Probably because it is close to Shanghai, the pure rural areas of China have also been occupied by foreigners' hobbies. This kind of dish, which used to be abundant when I came, is gradually decreasing now. In the middle of these vacant lots, something suddenly occurred to me. There stood simple and scattered things, a two-bedroom farmer's hut, several strange-looking old willows and many smelly coffins. In addition, there are rivers similar to ditches and bridges made of old coffin boards; Suddenly, in the middle of a Little Square, there are some brightly colored grass flowers and other flower sellers' gardens. By the way, the ground near here can be named after the pastoral encyclopedia of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Pingping; In this encyclopedic dictionary, it is unusual to use a thick piece of paper to print on a light ink copper plate, counting the huge cemetery that stands behind our house and was originally run by foreigners.

I don't know much about the history of this cemetery, but judging from the two rows of buttonwood trees from the door to the back of the central chapel, it is estimated that they are all in their sixties.

According to indigenous farmers, this seems to be the first cemetery run by a foreign country since the opening of Shanghai, but no one has asked now. Thirty or forty years ago, on winter solstice and Sunday in foreign countries, it was also a place for foreigners to walk in Shanghai. Because it takes only 30 to 40 minutes by train from Shanghai, it is very convenient to travel.

The rent for the cabin is eight yuan a month. This position looks a bit expensive, but it is more reasonable because there are not many vacant rooms for rent and there are several bows in front and back of the house, so tenants can spend flowers and grow vegetables. Especially the silence around the house, just like the silence in the grave, is near the foreign market, and it is hard to buy no matter how much money.

When I first moved here, I was like a patient who had not recovered from a long illness, stretching my limbs day by day and lying on a cane chair, too lazy to read books and newspapers. Except when I was hungry, I absorbed a little simple food, which broke the monotony of this ordinary day and was a walk in the fields in the evening. In this sunset, at the edge of those wild vegetable beds where leaves are falling, a person walks with his hands behind his back, and sometimes many disconnected thoughts arise in his dead mind. The sky above us is always green, and the twilight around us is always heavy.

But among these broken thoughts without context, sometimes suddenly the brain and brain will stop working completely. Standing in the field, standing as straight as a dead tree, I forgot my thoughts and feelings, my body couldn't move, and my blood seemed to freeze. The whole body is like a pillar of salt in Sodom; Needless to say, the brain has completely turned into a flat white paper without ripples and blood vessels.

When I come back from a walk, sometimes I have a little dinner, and sometimes I climb into bed and lie down without a sip of tea. Indoor equipment is extremely simple, and there are no civilized appliances such as lights and fans. On a moonlit night, I wake up in the middle of the night. If the small mud window in front of my bed shines into the green light of the moon, I can't continue to sleep that night.

Not only in the night with the moon, but also in normal sleep, it is very easy to wake up. My eyes were slightly open, and I didn't snore. Although I slept there, I didn't feel completely lost. A little sound in the dark room, the footsteps of insects and mice, and the night birds singing in the trees outside all rushed into my ears for a while. If you fall into this kind of fake sleep during the day, when you sleep, the surrounding movements will touch the middle of consciousness in detail. If there is absolute silence, no noise and no movement around, then at the moment of catnap, the events of more than ten years will be very detailed and rapidly unfolded in an instant. As for random dreams, there are more, so many that even the narrative is unclear.

I also know that I have a nervous breakdown. This is an old disease that is bound to happen in the summer of 1978.

So I want to rest more, and I want to be lazy.

This summer, there is really no hot weather, especially in my lonely wild house.

One night, the weather was particularly sultry. After dinner, I went to bed for a while. Finally, I felt that I couldn't sleep, so I got up again, opened the window and sat in the patio with her, waiting for the cold.

They had nothing to say, but looked up at the clouds flying in the sky and the two stars that had been exposed in the clouds.

I slowly shook the cattail leaf fan and sat there quietly. I don't know how long I have been sitting there. A foreign candle on the table in the room suddenly extinguished its core light.

And people don't want to move or see anything, so it doesn't matter whether there is light or not. They still sat silently in the dark, shaking their fans.

After sitting for a long time, it seems that a cool breeze blows at the end of the day and the curtains move. Yunfei in the sky flies quickly.

Before going to bed, he asked:

"I wonder what time it is?"

She stood up and walked slowly into the room. She went into the back room to get matches.

After a pause, I saw a glimmer of fire and a shadow around the fire, and her pale half face was under the shadow.

The first match went out, the second one went out, and the foreign candle was not lit until the third one.

After the candle lit, she hurried out, holding the big watch in her hand and gently said:

"I don't know what time it is. It's only six o'clock on the watch? "

I picked up my watch and listened to it close to my ear. There is no sound. I can't even remember that this watch was opened a few days ago.

"The watch has stopped!"

Answered softly, I also disappeared from sleep and wanted to sit in the cool wind for a while. But she went on to say:

"A beautiful moth died there on the lamp plate."

When I ran in, I saw a light red moth with green wings, smaller than a butterfly, but very fat. There is a focal shadow on the right wing, and the tentacles are burnt out. I watched it silently for a minute, then gently dialed it with my finger. My eyes are still staring at the beautiful body of the moth, but I can't help but say:

"Very poor! Let's bury it in the patio! "

I lit a lantern and dug a round hole in the black pine with a silver needle. When the beautiful body was buried, the wind intensified, as if it were going to rain heavily.

Tie it to the door, go to bed and lie down, a gust of wind comes, and then raindrops like stones hit the eaves.

While listening to the rain, I said to her as if to myself:

"chardonnay! It should be cool tomorrow. I want to go to Shanghai to see a doctor. "

Written in August 1928.

(Selected from Yu Dafu's Collected Works of Yu Dafu, Contemporary World Press, 20 10 edition)

Thinking practice

1. What description does the character description include?

2. What do you think should be emphasized in character description?

3. Why is action description an important means to shape characters?

4. Why should we emphasize that the description of characters' language must be personalized?

5. What are the manifestations of psychological description?

6. What role does the description of social environment play in the characterization of literary works? Try to give examples.

7. What role does the description of the natural environment play in the writing of literary works?

8. What is the role of detail description in literary works?