Readers' differing reactions to detail

It's wild getting feedback on your book. As the writer, you have goals you want to achieve, and you have a good idea by the time you finish writing whether you succeeded or failed. But readers don't care about your goals. I forget where I read it, but writers don't know what they've written until the readers tell them. There's some truth to that.

Because Tendrils to the Moon ended up being 40 percent longer than the book I set out to write initially, I think it's a tad long-winded for the story it tells. The prose can be tightened up. I also regret the plethora of secondary characters, some of whom disappear by the third act.

One reader, who is a friend, enthused about the book's procedural detail and realism, but wanted an equal level of description of character appearance and background, especially for secondary characters. He explained it was difficult to visualize the people, who needed to stand out more because of the stark environments they often were in.

Character detail is pretty spare in Tendrils. Ames is a big, physically fit guy in his late 40s. Sheridan is 50 and has sunken eyes and gray hair. Reuben is old and thin. Shaun is young and thick-chested, and has a Sun tattoo on his neck. Miranda is a pubescent girl with long red hair. Jeremiah is a small boy with freckles and brown hair. Rosco has a black mustache. Therese is short and buxom. Etc. Although I am a visual person, very few of the character details I included were intended to help visualize the character. They were intended to build the character. Their actions come first; traits are attributed by necessity.

On the other hand, another reader told me that the level of detail in Tendrils draws out the story too much. "Joe," this reader told me, "why can't you just say, 'the ship docked to the flotilla'?" In the first chapter I spent a few thousand words describing this process: the launch into a higher orbit, vector-matching the flotilla, docking, and finally the boarding protocol.

I get it. The level of detail extends many scenes and demands the reader's focus. But I think of how losing the grainy procedural detail would harm the book, and I couldn't possibly move away from that. It does more than build out the fictional world. The actions the characters take and the words they speak during these moments reveal their personalities and how they relate to one another. That depth is a strength of Tendrils that I am loathe to sacrifice.

As I said previously, Seeds of Calamity will be a "softer" sci-fi book, with less procedural detail and hard science. Already at the end of writing chapter 1, I have encountered several things that I've told myself I'm better off ignoring. I'm developing a habit of merely noting certain facets of the setting, giving the characters' actions more emphasis. It has the potential to be better than Tendrils. We'll see.

Let me know what you think in the comment section below! I'll reply to you as soon as I can. I invite you to read the first 3 chapters of Tendrils to the Moon for free, and see if the last 9 chapters are worth your time. The paperback version is on sale at Amazon for $8.99. The ebook is only 99 cents.