Descriptive Writing

Descriptive Writing What are some elements of good descriptive writing?

Good descriptive writing… • alludes to several of the senses: sight smell sound taste touch

the sense of sight… “Patches of eczema rouge my cheeks, while Ruby’s complexion is fair and flawless. Our scalps marry in the middle of our conjoined heads, but my frizzy hair has a glint of auburn, while my sister is a swingy brunette.” (Lori Lansens, in The Girls)

the sense of smell… “May walked over and stood beside me and I could smell nothing then but the pomade on her hair, onions on her hands, vanilla on her breath.” (Sue Monk Kidd, in The Secret Life of Bees)

the sense of sound… “She’s all tied up with over four minutes left. We can win this game. One side of the arena is howlin’ for blood and the other side is hootin’ and whistlin’ and clompin’ for joy. Nothing like it.” (Joel Hines, in Down to the Dirt)

the sense of touch… “Nothing suits me better than stepping on a sheet of fresh cleaned ice with my skates laced tight and razor sharp… the feel of the blades slicing into the ice when you take that turn behind the net.” (Joel Hines, in Down to the Dirt)

the sense of taste… “A breeze was coming up from the ocean, bringing a saltiness to his lips.” (Shyam Selvadurai, in Swimming in the Monsoon Sea)

Descriptive writing also uses: • strong, active verbs • interesting adjectives and adverbs

Strong, active verbs… “The wet, high-pitched ripping of his three-year-old flesh as the spotted hyena, never a kind beast and now mad with hunger, dove onto his leg, chomped at his waist, and then reached his face and gnawed, grunting with pleasure.” (Masha Hamilton, in The Camel Bookmobile)

interesting adjectives… “Islands rose out of the steel harbour waters with sheer cliff sides, reaching to uneven summits, and crowned with austere, soaring firs.” (Stephanie Meyer, in Twilight)

Interesting adverbs… “Its engines rumbling loudly and its propellers chopping explosively underwater, the ship churned past us and left us bouncing and bobbing in its frothy wake.” “You may be astonished that in such a short period of time I could go from weeping over the muffled killing of a flying fish to gleefully bludgeoning to death a dorado.” (Yann Martel, in Life of Pi)

Descriptive writing uses figurative language… simile metaphor personification alliteration

Simile… “Ray had exceptionally large glasses, like an underwater mask, as if he never knows when he’ll have to do some welding or shield himself from a solar eclipse.” (Miriam Toews, in A Complicated Kindness) “Around dawn we heard the redskins’ helicopters pass over the village and then return. They hovered in the air like giant dragonflies, peering down at the clearing.” (Lloyd Jones, in Mister Pip)

Metaphor… “With just one glance I discovered that the sea is a city. Just below me, all around, unsuspected by me, were highways, boulevards, street and roundabouts bustling with submarine traffic. In water that was dense, glassy and flecked by millions of lit-up specks of plankton, fish like trucks and buses and cars and bicycles and pedestrians were madly racing about, no doubt honking and hollering at each other.” (Yann Martel in Life of Pi)

Personification… “I stood on the screen porch that jutted off the back of the kitchen and watched the clouds bruise dark purple over the treetops and the wind whip the branches.” (Secret Life of Bees) “But this was a monsoon sea, wild and savage, and it had eaten up the beach.” (Shyam Selvadurai, in Swimming in the Monsoon Sea)

Alliteration… “The next morning we woke to the helicopters again. My mum was bent over me, her face pinched with panic. She was yelling at me to hurry. I could hear people shouting outside, and the beating of the blades.” (Lloyd Jones, in Mister Pip)

Some practice… • Read the Stephanie Meyer paragraph from Twilight • Circle all the adjectives • Underline all the verbs • Highlight and label each literary device

Evaluate the following topic sentences: • The view from the trail was beautiful. • The view from the granite rocks at Green Cove was moving. • The view from the peak of Top Thrill Dragster was scary. • The view from the mountaintop was very pretty. • The view from the mountaintop was sensational, stupendous, and astonishing.

Things to remember • Allude to a minimum of 3 different senses • Use a minimum of 3 different literary devices • Use strong, active verbs • Choose interesting adjectives and adverbs • Vary your sentence length • Keep verb tense consistent • Keep narrative point of view consistent

Avoid “2nd person narration” (the word “you”) • Avoid too much “word clutter”; find a happy medium between too little description and not enough to give a picture in the reader’s mind • Do not tell what is happening (ie. What you are doing); rather tell what you see/hear/smell etc. from your stationary vantage point • Avoid clichés (find your own original descriptions) • Edit carefully! (look for spelling, grammar, consistent verb tense)

Descriptive Writing