The Specific is Universal

I had heard the phrase “ the specific is universal,” early in my writing education, but later I learned that James Joyce wrote,

“For myself, I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal."

Particularity and specificity are essential. Without them, writing sucks. When someone writes to me “you mean the world to me” I still don’t know why they like me. Tell me about the time I helped you move, or when your puppy shit on me, and I laughed it off and wore your fuzzy robe for the dinner party, or tell me how I waited four hours without complaint when picking you up at the airport.  Tell me what you like about my smile or how I can hold a baby on my hip and make leek-and-corn chowder at the same time. Don’t give me an empty cliché; be specific. The specific is universal in first-person writing and in all creative and even non-creative writing.  Details, data, dates, and directions are structures that support our analysis and conclusions in professional and scientific writing. In creative writing, it’s often the clay we use to sculpt our art.

The Specific

Most writers agree that we don’t write “flower” when the bloom is an Ice King Daffodil with six, stark white tepals surrounding the center corona. The Ice King doesn’t host a central trumpet for its corona,  rather it contrasts stark white with a yellow -to-white-ombre spread of petal-like organs; Its array is so full of furls it resembles a chrysanthemum. With so many petal-like structures, it’s called a double narcissus.

In my garden, the weight of all that beauty forces the daffodil stem to bend under pressure.  After yesterday’s rain, my little bed of five Ice Kings all humbly face-planted in the dirt. So bent over were they, that if there had been a pond nearby, the narcissists would have surely looked for their reflection.

Go Too Far

Has the writing above gone too far and given too much description and too much detail?  Probably, but I might want to go further.  There are facts, images, and backstories to exploit. This descriptive paragraph could move to mythology.  We could go much further into the sexuality of the corona, for they are not petals at all but evolved fancy sex organs that now attract people rather than bees or moths to assist their reproduction.  We could try to evoke the sweet scent. The writing could drift to the dangers of vanity.  There are many places we could go.

Or we could just write “daffodil” or Ice King Daffodil.”  In my prewriting or first draft, I might exploit all the details that seem pertinent to the story or even those that don’t feel pertinent.  A writer can wander around in early drafts.  I might uncover metaphors or details that connect to a subtheme.  This could make the paragraph richer, and it might help me find the heart of my story or main theme, or subtheme.  Once we understand the heart, voice, and structures of our story, we cut that which does not serve the story, but in the early drafts, we may collect details where our interests and passions nudge us. I want to tell you more about the genetic interventions that altered the Ice King, but I had to cut that part.