Details that Tell, Details that Move

Pinecones, baby teeth, and the particulars that make our stories come alive

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She thought it was just a pinecone, but it was “a grenade.” 

The golden rule of writing is to show not tell, and sensory, emotion-evoking details are how it’s done. So today we’re we’re continuing our close reading series of Maggie Smith’s You Could Make This Place Beautiful by taking notes on the power of detail in her narrative (last week’s is here if you want to catch it).

We’re studying three case studies here in the text, and we’re starting with the pinecone that turned out to be a grenade that would blow apart her marriage and life as she knew it.  

Smith writes,

“This pinecone, brought home to Ohio on an airplane, sat on one of our two dining room sideboards.” 

It was “a souvenir” for their five-year-old nature-collector son from her husband’s recent business trip. 

Except it wasn’t just a pinecone. No detail that tells is ever “just” anything, but rather, always emblematic of something more. 

The discovery of infidelity is a story we know. It’s a familiar—if devastating—plot point. But the angle from which Smith tells this tale as old as time is what compels fresh attention. She could have “told” the story by simply stating she discovered her husband was having an affair. Instead, she chooses an artifact, an icon, to show us.

Here’s some of what I notice: