Detail vs Detail
The word detail can be either a noun or a verb. And which one it is (or should be) depends on what kind of story you're telling.
The noun is an individual fact or item.
The verb means give full information about something.
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It's the choice between going deep or going wide. How many or how much.
If you're telling a story and you…
…go really deep on one thing, you don't have to go that deep on many things.
…go deep on many things, you can't afford to go deep on anything.
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I just had a really interesting experience in which my uncle told me stories about his childhood that I'd already heard from my dad's perspective.
My dad tells these stories in a wide shot. My uncle tells them in a series of close ups.
My dad's stories are a documentary about WWII, my uncle's stories are Dunkirk.
I think part of me believes what they say about how self interested people are - that they only want to hear about themselves. There was something about the telling of the stories - they way they were told through his eyes - that made me feel like I was experiencing them through mine.
It was the details that mattered. Small things; the layout of a banquet hall, the tune somebody whistled, the colour of a cassette.