Sometimes the devil is in the details.
Here is something I know: the East-West streets in the central part of DC are given letter names. There is no J Street, however, because of fear of confusion between the I and J on handwritten maps when the city was first developed.
It's an interesting detail and would be relevant to a story if someone unfamiliar with DC were looking for K Street and kept passing it because they assumed the street following I Street was J Street. Now the person they were supposed to meet, who is waiting for them at a location on K Street just keeps waiting and waiting, while lost guy frantically tries to find K Street. The misunderstanding adds angst that is based on real details, which lends the story a feeling of truth, even if the reader has never been to DC.
Let's say instead Character A moves to DC and Character B visits. Suddenly the romantic angst-fest I'm expecting due to the UST hopefully resolving itself through the visit, coupled with miscommunication, insecurity, and stolen glances, turns into a travelogue of the DC area, with A explaining to B the street system, the monuments, history, blah, blah, blah, I puke, the end.
I only wish I were making this up, but we've all read at least one story where the writer utilizes knowledge about an area or subject to educate the reader through character dialogue. Hell, Dan Brown does it repeatedly and makes a kajillion dollars. I can't stand Dan Brown. There are ways to impart details in your story without making your reader feel they are reading a travel guide to Chicago, or the employment manual of a repair shop, or the Wyoming State DMV guidelines.
Details are important because they lend authenticity and layered nuance to the story, but they should not be the story itself. In fact, a really, really good story, such as the incomparable "A Boy's Book of Practical Magic to Mystify, Baffle and Entertain," could lose every additional detail and still be a good story, because the point of it isn't whether or not Nicholas knows who Vic Reeves is, or even if the reader knows who Vic Reeves is, but that Danny realizes Nicholas doesn't know who Vic Reeves is, and the pang of sweetness in that revelation, even though the knowledge is irrelevant to the story itself. It could be Vic Reeves, or the recurring themes in Xena the Warrior Princess. The point is the realization, the revelation in dialogue--gentle humor seamlessly inserted into a scene of emotional depth, giving it the levity and reality that mimics real conversation.
I know, I know. I've talked about all this before, but that was different. Before, I was complaining about using incorrect details. Or possibly it was the time I rambled about how much fun it is to do research for a story, but about how sometimes the research has to stop because it may be getting in the way of actually writing the story. This is another Devil: the one who tells a writer all those details are relevant to the story and need to be included at any cost, thus sacrificing an otherwise good story to Its minions. It is a tricky Devil indeed, with hungry minions.
So yeah. I'm reading a story right now with more detail than one finds in a freshman textbook and I'm just waiting for the fucking romance to develop between the characters. Instead I'm learning about how Character A is going to get motorcycle insurance and how to work the production controls at a radio station. I believe part of my frustration, besides the obvious, is due to feeling cheated. I wanted a juicy slashy romance with tons of angst and a happy ending. That is what I need right now. Instead I get lessons on how to control my breath during Tai Chi (all of which serves to remind me that the recs on crack_van are only as good as the taste of the person giving them). And now that I've invested actual time in reading half the story, I feel committed to at least skimming to the parts where actual chemistry develops between the two main characters so when I skip to the end, I feel some sort of payoff.
None of this has any bearing on anything important, I realize. I just felt like rambling about something other than my personal life.
Also, any recommendations for something to read that isn't a Wyoming wilderness camping guide, are beyond welcome.