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Carver is your example of extraneous detail?
I always saw detail in his work as part of the setting and establishing narrative voice. There’s some writing you can’t just rip through.
I haven’t read why don’t you dance though, so whatever.
Your example sentence was a weird one to me because the brands, description of griminess, detail of syrup on the coffee table and inclusion of a rust belt chain restaurant all come together to paint a very vivid picture. That one sentence tells me about where and when your character existed and where he exists now. How he lives and how he sees himself, and in a more abstract vernacular establishes a particular type of dude.
Maybe it’s just hard to write badly.
Could be. I always notice that writers who have that particular streak of realism tend to use those details to convey identities that we might not have language for otherwise. There was one I read recently where the main character is at someone’s backyard party and instead of getting a Dixie cup of coke she got aplastic cup of soda and I immediately knew the kind of person it was whose party she was at. Buys in bulk at Walmart, everything store brand, house well kept but punching above their consumptive weight class.
Living in a society based on consumption we define ourselves and others around those choices. So a writer isn’t necessarily dumping words out when they talk about captain crunch for five pages.
