Details

I swear, some readers feel positively threatened by details. If they don't see an immediate purpose for the detail, it makes them anxious, like they need to take notes or they're going to have a quiz on them. They can't just let the details be part of the flavor of the story.

I wonder if some of them have had one of those nasty teachers who thought the best way of testing whether students actually read the story is to give quizzes on the minute trivial details of the story -- the sort that you're apt to read over if you're just reading normally, to absorb the gist of the story rather than to search for details you may be quizzed on.