In a former post I showed how taking another look at multiple modifiers can lead to deeper meaning. The example I used was “long orange stringy hair”—it gives a brief visual, but not much more. In later drafts I suggested you might examine such clustered modifiers to single out the one that can contribute the most to your story, and then capitalize on it to create meaning. After posting that blog I happened to pick up an old copy of The Brigadier and the Golf Widow, a collection of short stories by John Cheever. Cheever is a master of the telling detail. I particularly enjoyed this passage from “An Educated American Woman,” in which Cheever introduces his main character, Jill Chidchester Madison, a woman who has light brown hair, small breasts, and brown eyes. Many authors would have stopped at this roll call of visual elements, which the reader may or may not later remember. Not Cheever. And rather than whittle down to one telling detail, he turns each of these attributes into a...