My wife and I have been doing some spring cleaning lately. In fact, we spent the majority of our spring break doing just that. I've been busy hanging pot racks in the kitchen, taking naps, organizing the garage, eating, and... well, I'm sure I did a few other things too. Meanwhile my wife has been a blur of motion, whizzing about the house with arms full of collected clutter, rearranging entire rooms with a flick of her wrist, and cleaning every inch of carpet and tile (and peel-n-stick laminate) in our home. Somehow, she's also made sure that our 8 month old daughter is constantly happy and giggling and not getting into too much trouble as she crawls around the living room (my daughter crawls around, not my wife). One of the big areas we have focused on is preparing for a garage sale. Now I've always been a collector, and I probably always will be. Therefore I have a ton of junk that no one needs. Sure, some of it I have on shelves to show how cool I am and how much I like Rising Stars, Strange Brew, Marvel Comics, Vikings, Dragons, Pokemon, Star Wars, Disney, Final Fantasy, and GI Joe... so yeah, lots of stuff. However, I also have two tubs of action figures that will likely never see the light of day, and I have five long-boxes crammed full of comics stuffed into our closet. Way too much junk.
I hang on to all these things under the pretense that I will someday share them with my child(ren) and they will delight in my nerdy-wares. I dream of the day my daughter and I will have in-depth conversations about gamma radiation and how to properly E.V. train a Gardevoir with a Modest nature (252 Speed/252 S. Attack/4 HP if you were wondering). The truth is, though, I have no idea if she will even care. I cling to these items fiercely thinking that I can somehow force their "value" on someone else.
So how does this apply to writing? Well, as a fantasy writer, I put a lot of stock into world-building. I've spent ten years creating the world I used for my upcoming novel, the screenplays on my shelf, and the role-playing books (which are still a year or two away from being ready). It is a constantly evolving beast, and I enjoy - probably too much - spinning histories and cultural backgrounds. I also like to drop pieces of this history into my writing. I might mention a series of battles or the destruction of a prominent city in dialogue, or give a glimpse of a ghostly figure sitting by a silo near a dark field. But does anyone care? I've put a lot of work into this world and I love adding its flavors to the scratch from which my stories are made, but how much is too much?
Honestly, I don't think there's an answer to this. I've had people read my work and say that the added tidbits only make the narrative more real for them. Meanwhile, others often find it distracting because they don't know what the reference means and wish that I would take the time to explain it if I'm going to use it in a story.
This is where I have to learn to pull out weeds. Like my comic books and action figures, I will likely hold on to most of them. Knowing the value they have to me and thinking that it might be passed on and valued equally by my progeny some day is worth having an overfull closet. But I can also trim the collection down. While I definitely want to pass on my near-complete run of She-Hulk comics (something I do plan to complete someday) and my almost comprehensive collection of Thanos appearances (another goal), there's probably no need for me to keep my run of Darkhawk or my issues of Vortex the Wonder Mule. The hard part will be finding the line between keep and toss when it comes to writing because it is most certainly gray and really pixilated.
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