It’s In the Details- Escaping the “Big Picture”

A couple of days ago I went to an activity organized by the women’s group in my church. Besides the delicious salads and decadent desserts, we also got to listen to an inspirational message given by one of the women. In this message, she talked about her love of nature, and how it was passed down from her parents. She talked about how her mother used to share what she called “nature’s camera.”

Nature’s camera is really nothing more than a small square of paper–maybe 3-4 inches on each side–with a one-inch square cut out of the middle. The idea is to hold it up against something like a leaf, or the side of a rock, or a pine cone and look at the object through the small hole. Somehow, when you focus on such a tiny patch, the details pop out, and you are able to notice the small things you couldn’t with your mind trying to take in everything around it.

Why does this matter? It takes time to see the details. A tree is still a tree. Will it really change anything if I stop and examine the texture of the bark and see the color variations running through the leaves? The answer is, no, it won’t change the tree. The only thing it will change is you, and your perception of the world around you.

Noticing the details helps you appreciate the things around you. Sure, you can appreciate a tree as a whole, but when you stop and look at all the little intricacies that contribute to making that tree what it is, you realize that there is so much more to the life of that organism. Everything works together perfectly to form a thing that is both beautiful, and so beneficial to the world.

Looking for the details wakes up your mind. It forces you to see things differently, which is a healthy brain exercise. When your brain is exercised in this way, it can seep into other aspects of your life, and you can start noticing the details in your work, and your other activities of enjoyment. It is kind of like putting on glasses. The world around you becomes sharper. It can become a habit.

Allowing yourself to see the details is like giving yourself permission to slow down and enjoy the moment. You’ve probably heard the term “stop and smell the roses.” Even if you only stop for a few seconds to observe a ladybug’s spots or the cool moss on the side of a tree, it is a brief break from the frenzied pace life seems to take these days. You come away feeling refreshed. Thirty seconds really won’t change much in the grand scheme of things, but it can change the mood of the entire day.

A writer has to be careful with details, because if they spend a page and a half describing one tree, and then move on to every wildflower and shrub in the area, the reader will get bored very quickly. But the details are also what makes the story become real. As a writer practices observing the details around them in real life, they can create a vast library of mental images they can pick and choose from to form the ideal description. They may not use every aspect they observed, but they will be able to have the most important details right at their fingertips to utilize as the need arises. Observing the details themselves will help them realize what a reader needs to know, and what is best left to the imagination.

As a reader, observing real-life details helps when immersing yourself in a book. Since the author cannot really describe everything in perfect detail, it is up to your brain to fill in the blanks. If you haven’t spent the time to give your brain something to fill those gaps in with, it will only be able to piece together a fuzzy picture at best. Getting acquainted with the details is one of the best ways to help your reading become an experience rather than an exercise. 

With these things said, this post comes with a challenge. Get out and observe some details. Take five or ten minutes to notice some of the little things you normally would glance over. Perhaps make yourself a “nature’s camera” and use it. Smell the roses. See the moss. Hear the cicada’s buzz. Feel the dandelion fuzz. You get the idea. Now don’t waste any more time here. Go out and do it!