Popularized by beloved Peanuts character Snoopy, “It was a dark and stormy night…¹” has been the opening of so many bad stories over the years that is has become a laughable cliché.  To be fair, there was a time when setting such a dark and broody tone so early in a story was considered a bold move on the author’s part².

There’s a lesson to be learned here but, I’m afraid, the clichéd masses have learned the wrong one.  The wrong lesson is that “a dark and stormy night” is the best/only way to begin a scary story.

The right lesson is that, properly described, mundane details can weave a descriptive tapestry that communicate so much with so little.  In this example, the mundane details are that it was raining (fairly common) and that it is dark at night (duh).  A writer could say, “It was raining, as was common in spring, and this happened at night.  That’s when the sun goes home and its dark outside.  Humans have a naturally occurring fear of the dark.”  For as much I would love to read literally ANYTHING by an author who writes like this, this sets a very different tone!

Whether writing or talking, whether a story or a joke, mundane details can set an extremely specific tone.  Setting a specific tone in such an efficient manner is a fun and creative way to get where you want to go, narratively speaking.

Consider some examples:

• The embarrassingly 90’s carpet
• Faded red polo shirt and a matching faded enthusiasm
• The smell of hot copiers and dusty metal shelves

With these examples it shouldn’t surprise you that I went to Staples today, you probably even guessed it.  Let’s unpack these examples a tiny bit, shall we?

Embarrassingly 90’s carpet reminds us that, in the 90’s, before e-commerce took over, Staples ruled the office supply world. This also shows that Staples, sadly, still remembers too.

Faded red polo shirt and a matching faded enthusiasm is a visual detail that communicates how demoralizing working in retail can be.  It can also serve as a useful reminder that people working in retail are still people and should be treated as people.

The smell of hot copiers and dusty shelves. Like many good descriptions, there’s more than one thing to unpack here.  First and most obvious, describing a smell that is identifiable by the reader (and everyone knows these smells) can serve to put the reader right there in the Staples.  Second, this detail hints at the history of the once giant office supply juggernaut now scraping by through imitating Kinko’s.  Last and while not a huge thing but worth mentioning, hot copiers and dusty metal both have a smell.  If we were to write, “The smell of defeat,” that would be stupid.  There is no smell of defeat.  Neither is there a smell of “childhood,” “comfort” nor “contemplation.”  There is, however, a smell of “crayons,” “hot cocoa” and “libraries.”  The lesson here being that you shouldn’t be so eager to get to the tone you want to set that you tumble into “purple prose.”

So, how do you do it?  Easy!…well, kinda.

Practice!

Simply choose a detail and describe it.  (go ahead I’ll wait)

Now, read your description and see how it makes you feel.

Then describe another detail.

How does that one make you feel?  Getting better, right?

Keep doing it.

You see how this goes.  The more you do this, the easier it will be for you to home in on the exact detail that is most emblematic of the tone you’re going for.

Like any hard-won wisdom, the ability to use a mundane detail to say a LOT is worth the work.  Especially since it isn’t a lot of work.

1. This line originally opened Edward Bulwer-Lypton’s 1830 novel, “Paul Clifford”
2. Ultimately, however, it has been since recognized as the epitome of “Purple Prose” which could be defined as “Writing so flamboyant that it detracts from the narrative and focuses on the language being used.”