"I never spare myself where detail is concerned," a would-be contributor wrote when offering a magazine article. Unfortunately she did not spare me either; there were fifty-seven pages of close, nearly illegible writing, describing the tombs of some long-dead unknowns in an out-of-the-way Continental church.
To enumerate every single item is not Art; it is cataloguing.
[Sidenote: Training Yourself in the Matter of Selection]
Look your subject well over before you write a line; decide what are its outstanding features, which are its most prominent characteristics, and what it is absolutely necessary to say about it, in order to give a clear presentment. At the same time, note what is irrelevant to the main purport of your writing, and what is comparatively unimportant.
After all, the mind can only take in a certain amount of detail, a certain number of facts; and as it cannot absorb everything, a limit has to be placed somewhere. Common sense tells us that since something must be left out, it is well to omit the colourless, unimportant data that never will be missed!
In every scene there are always definite points that arrest the attention and give character to the whole, and many other points that really do not make very much difference one way or the other. The artist (whether he be making word-pictures or colour-pictures) selects those points that give the most character to the scene, those incidents which convey the most comprehensive idea of the place and the people and their doings, in the fewest words.
If you are writing a story, it is seldom necessary to describe every thing appertaining to, and every one connected with, the heroine, for example--at any rate, not on her first appearance. Her home, her relations, her dress, can often be dealt with in a few sentences; but those sentences must contain just the facts that give the key to the whole situation.
Probably it will not throw any vivid light on the lady if you state that her drawing-room was upholstered in old rose, and she herself devoted to chocolate; because the virtuous no less than the wicked, the most advanced feminist as well as the silliest bundle of vanity, might all have equal leanings toward old rose and be addicted to chocolate. But if you state, either that she was reading a first edition of Dante, or cutting out flannelette undergarments for the sewing meeting, or powdering her chalky nose in public--the reader will have some sort of clue as to your heroine's personality. An instinct for selection will tell you which item will characterise a person most accurately.