: Re: How can I learn subtlety? I'm a journalist, and my writing work often involves writing reviews. Similar work in the field often focuses down on the mechanical, objective qualities of the thing

@Kevin153

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I feel that what you're talking about is shifting from straight nonfiction to narrative nonfiction. It's a hot sub-genre right now, and a lot of journalism is heading that direction. However, I think you've misdiagnosed what you need to make that transition. Instead of adding subtlety, what you really need for narrative nonfiction is to add a storyline. Essentially, you'll be writing a short story, but a fact-based one, that carries an extra burden of carrying useful information.

I think your second quote, the one you would have originally written, is still okay. You just want to surround it with some context.

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Making a deck with a limited selection of cards had unexpected charm. Everyone just copies ideas from the internet nowadays. But without everything I needed, I had to plan my own instead, and it proved surprisingly satisfying... And that's how a deck of cards saved my relationship with my family.

Obviously the elided parts are the important parts, but the idea is that you give your reader a little personal storyline to help them understand this product --and not necessarily that you replace the hard facts of your story with tone poems.

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