Ha Jin, On Description and Detail in Fiction

00:13 [Ha Jin] In "Waiting" it just came naturally because I wrote about the places I knew, so it was almost natural. But in books like War Trash

00:30 and some other books that are historical fiction, I was not there. I had to be very careful where often I would look at pictures and magazines, whatever, and sources available, just to be sure that I really had a physical sense of that place.

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00:54 A lot of things like taste and smell -- these cannot be physically experienced by words. That's okay, but when we describe them, we really bring another kind of sensation. I think Henry James used the word "material sensation." All the details are supposed to create a kind of material sensation in the prose that will give a lot of texture to the writing.

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01:25 I think what's important is really to seize the details, to really be reading authentic details. Just a few good details can really convince the reader that this is the place. That's most important. I think that's the mark of talent, if a writer has an eye for good details that's really something. That means the person can go far in the writing, in the craft of fiction.

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01:56 Let me give you one example in Waiting and the hospital scene, and there are a lot of flowers planted in the hospital, but they use horse dung as fertilizer. That's important because that was rare, but it was also authentic. There's a woman in the hospital. She was getting treated but Lin Kong saw

02:30 lice in her hair, [something]. I think those details are really important details, really reveal the quality of life of this character. Not just whether they are dirty or messy, but behind this is what kind of life is implied. So that kind of reveals, I think, that's important, essential.