With which I completely agree.
With which I also agree. But that's the key point, isn't it? The statement in the OP that says "it isn't really that important to the story" pretty much says it all for me. Now, in the absence of having a look at the story, and without knowing what this detail is, from a reader standpoint, it's hard to make that judgment. But if the writer is concerned that it isn't important, and yet somehow is finding it a blockade to advancing the story, methinks it just should be dropped. Or at least put aside and ignored, allowing the narrative to advance. If it becomes a point of significance, it can always be inserted later. If it never does, it doesn't need to be there, period.
There is no "perfetc." Ever. "The best you can reasonably do" is all anyone can strive for.
caw
Well, the OP didn't say it had no importance, she said is wasn't all that important, which means to me that it has some importance, however small. My philosophy is that if something has any impornace at all, however tiny, it goes in because that might be the one thing that sways an editor.
As for perfection, I keep hearing that there's no such thing perfect, and maybe it's true, but there are things so close to perfect that the difference doesn't matter.
And, really, who's to say something isn't perfect? Why do we assume that nothing can be perfect? I've certainly read some short stories and a handful of novels that, if not perfect, came so close that the difference was indiscernible.
And have yu ever seen Michelangelo's stature of David? I'm certainly not going to say it isn't perfect.
Everything gets criticized by someone, but all critics are themselves imperfect.
But it doesn't matter. Even if "perfect" doesn't exist, some thing are certainly more perfect than others, some things come so close to perfection that they stagger the mind, and while perfection may be an unobtainable goal, I have no problem striving for it.
In order to be perfect, or even to come close, details matter. Details are perfection. Either something is important to the story, or it has no importance at all. There is no middle ground.
I've sold stories for the tiniest of reasons, for one sentence that made the editor say, "This is why I became an editor". Nor was that sentence of any real value to the story. Remove it, and the story still would have read fine, but the editor said that one sentence put my story far above the other contenders. That one, really unimportant sentence that did nothing but describe something, made the editor say that was why she became an editor, and why she picked my story.
I do often have to settle for Good Enough. I do often just have to let something go because I'm just not good enough to get it
right, but letting go is always a last resort.
If a sentence of any kind has even the tiniest tidbit of important to the story, or if I know the story could live without it, I work my ass off to get it right, to make it
perfect, before I left go.