EL P1 Descriptive Writing Notes

DESCRIPTIVE WRITING Descriptive writing has a unique power and appeal, as it evokes sights, smells, sounds, textures, and tastes. Using description in your writing brings the world within your text to your reader. Creating A Dominant Impression The first step in using effective description is to focus on a dominant impression. A dominant impression creates a mood or atmosphere in your paper. This mood can be conveyed through effective descriptive writing. For example, pay attention to the mood in the following paragraph. My family ate dinner at Merrymead Diner every Friday night while I was a child. We huddled close in a large, red booth as we scanned the familiar menu. The aroma of gravy over creamy mashed potatoes lingered in the air. I snuggled close to my mom’s arm as she ordered our drinks. The waitress brought our thick milkshakes out on a tray and placed them in front of us on a paper doily. The jukebox in the back played songs that we all knew the words to, and we sang along until our food arrived, hot and enticing on the table. Outside I shivered in the cold air, but in the diner I was cosy, munching on crispy French fries and enjoying a hot, juicy cheeseburger. Can you feel the mood of this paragraph? The author is trying to convey a feeling of safety, comfort, and happiness. Notice how the author does not tell the reader she feels safe and happy. She shows the reader through descriptive detail. Her dominant impression is one of comfort and happiness. Sensory Details Sensory description uses sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste to sketch an impression in writing. Consider a paragraph without sensory description. My sister and I walked along the boardwalk each afternoon of our vacation. We watched the ocean and listened to the waves. Usually we stopped for a snack at one of the many stores that line the boardwalk. Afterwards, we walked along the beach and let our feet get wet. Now, consider this paragraph with all five sensory descriptors: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. My sister and I walked along the boardwalk one afternoon on our vacation. The hot boards warmed our bare feet. We watched the foam-covered waves topple over each other and then slide back into sea. The crashing water competed with the exuberant yells from the seagulls. We bought a perfectly oval fluff of pink cotton candy that dissolved sweetly in our mouths. Afterwards, we walked along the edge of the water, letting the warm salty air blow our hair away from our necks as the cool water lapped over our toes.

Vivid vs. Vague Language The sensory details you select in your writing should create for your reader the same picture you have in your mind. Instead of using vague, general words, your sensory language should be concrete and sensory-packed. This makes the difference between vivid and vague language. Take a look at the comparison between vague and vivid sentences. Vague Vivid The food was unappetizing. The pale turkey slices floated limply in a pool of murky fat. The sprinkler was refreshing. The cool water from the sprinkler sprayed our hot faces. The traffic was heavy. Our old car puffed as Main Street became clogged with a line of clamoring motorists. Vary Sentence Structure When using descriptive language, it is important to vary your sentence structure. Try to avoid using the same subject-verb pattern in all sentences. Embedding descriptive elements and combining sentences can help to avoid the routine subject-verb structure. The hall was empty. She ran towards the classroom. She entered right after the bell rang. Varying this sentence structure by embedding descriptive detail breaks the monotonous tone and the clipped, subject-verb style. Racing down an empty hall, she skidded into the classroom, breathless, just as the bell clanged above her. What to Avoid When Using Sensory Detail • Too many adjectives—retain only the most powerful words in your writing, deleting any unnecessary words • Too many adverbs—verbs are stronger than adverbs. She strolled into the room is more powerful than She walked casually into the room. • Clichéd figures of speech—overused language, such as green with envy, signals a lack of imagination. Use fresh, descriptive words that go against rote thinking. https://www.iup.edu/writingcenter/writing-resources/organization-and-structure/descriptive-writing/

5 Examples of How to Write a Good Descriptive Paragraph By Richard Nordquist (Updated June 06, 2020) A good descriptive paragraph is like a window into another world. Through the use of careful examples or details, an author can conjure a scene that vividly describes a person, place, or thing. The best descriptive writing appeals to multiple senses at once—smell, sight, taste, touch, and hearing—and is found in both fiction and nonfiction. In their own way, each of the following writers (three of them students, two of them professional authors) have selected a belonging or a place that holds special meaning to them. After identifying that subject in a clear topic sentence, they proceed to describe it in detail while explaining its personal significance. A Friendly Clown On one corner of my dresser sits a smiling toy clown on a tiny unicycle―a gift I received last Christmas from a close friend. The clown's short yellow hair, made of yarn, covers its ears but is parted above the eyes. The blue eyes are outlined in black with thin, dark lashes flowing from the brows. It has cherry-red cheeks, nose, and lips, and its broad grin disappears into the wide, white ruffle around its neck. The clown wears a fluffy, two-tone nylon costume. The left side of the outfit is light blue, and the right side is red. The two colours merge in a dark line that runs down the centre of the small outfit. Surrounding its ankles and disguising its long black shoes are big pink bows. The white spokes on the wheels of the unicycle gather in the centre and expand to the black tire so that the wheel somewhat resembles the inner half of a grapefruit. The clown and unicycle together stand about a foot high. As a cherished gift from my good friend Tran, this colourful figure greets me with a smile every time I enter my room. Observe how the writer moves clearly from a description of the head of the clown to the body to the unicycle underneath. More than sensory details for the eyes, she provides touch, in the description that the hair is made of yarn and the suit of nylon. Certain colours are specific, as in cherry-red cheeks and light blue, and descriptions help the reader to visualize the object: the parted hair, the colour line on the suit, and the grapefruit analogy. Dimensions overall help to provide the reader with the item's scale, and the descriptions of the size of the ruffle and bows on the shoes in comparison to what's nearby provide telling detail. The concluding sentence helps to tie the paragraph together by emphasizing the personal value of this gift.

The Blond Guitar My most valuable possession is an old, slightly warped blond guitar―the first instrument I taught myself how to play. It's nothing fancy, just a Madeira folk guitar, all scuffed and scratched and fingerprinted. At the top is a bramble of copper-wound strings, each one hooked through the eye of a silver tuning key. The strings are stretched down a long, slim neck, its frets tarnished, the wood worn by years of fingers pressing chords and picking notes. The body of the Madeira is shaped like an enormous yellow pear, one that was slightly damaged in shipping. The blond wood has been chipped and gouged to grey, particularly where the pick guard fell off years ago. No, it's not a beautiful instrument, but it still lets me make music, and for that I will always treasure it. by Jeremy Burden Here, the writer uses a topic sentence to open his paragraph then uses the following sentences to add specific details. The author creates an image for the mind's ey