Writing to describe The important thing with descriptive writing is that you know your ingredients and that you know why you are using them. Look carefully at the following techniques: Adjectives - describing words that describe a noun. Used to help create a more vivid picture in our minds about the named object. Adverbs - words used to describe verbs. They help to create a more vivid picture in our minds about how something is being done. Alliteration - repetition of connected words beginning with the same letter. Used to highlight the feeling of sound and movement, or to intensify feeling or to bind words together. Connotations - an idea or feeling that a word invokes for a person as well as its literal meaning. Connotations evoke reactions in the reader based on their experience of certain words. For example, words like ghost and death can evoke strong negative connotations. Pathetic fallacy - where the weather in the story mirrors the emotion of the scene or the people in it. For example, when it is very hot the characters are agitated or when it is foggy, mystery is evoked. This adds atmosphere to the writing and gives clues to the reader as to what is to come, especially if the weather is described before the event. Personification - the technique of presenting things which are not human as if they were. This can make inaminate things seem as if they are alive and able to do the things that a person can. Repetition - the action of repeating something. This will either add emphasis to the words being repeated or create a rhythm within the writing. Onomatopoeia - use of words which echo their meaning in sound. For example, 'whoosh' or 'bang'. This techniques can give the reader a real sense of the noise that is happening within the writing. Simile - a comparison based on a similarity between two things, which suggests one object shares features with another but is not identical. This technique helps to create an image in the mind of the reader so that the reader can identify with how things appear or may be happening. Hint - 'like' or 'as' are key words to spot. Symbolism - when a word, phrase or image stands for or evokes a complex set of ideas. For example, a red rose can symbolise romantic love. Writers will sometimes use symbols in their writing so that they can suggest things without actually explaining them. Style models As with other writing tasks, when you are asked to write descriptively, it is always best to read other professional examples to use as 'style models', helping you to pick out some key techniques or conventions of this style of writing. This extract is taken from a ghost story called The Red Room by HG Wells: I heard the sound of a stick and a shambling step on the flags in the passage outside, and the door creaked on its hinges as a second old man entered, more bent, more wrinkled, more aged even than the first. He supported himself by a single crutch, his eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth. He made straight for an arm-chair on the opposite side of the table, sat down clumsily, and began to cough. The man with the withered arm gave this new-comer a short glance of positive dislike; the old woman took no notice of his arrival, but remained with her eyes fixed steadily on the fire. The Red Room by HG Wells First, it helps to 'CAP' it: Context - This is a piece of highly descriptive writing taken from the genre of a ghost story, designed to be entertaining. It has a style we call gothic so is expected to be quite dark in its style. It was first published in 1896 so some of the language will be different from what we use today. Audience - The original readers will have been educated adults who enjoy reading ghost stories for entertainment. Purpose - The purpose is mainly to entertain. As with all serious literature, the writer might also have the purpose of exploring certain themes that might even promote a particular moral viewpoint. As it is gothic in style, it will probably aim to scare us too. Below, you can see some of the writing techniques which have been used in the extract. Even though this piece doesn’t use metaphors and similes, it certainly uses lots of the other features and, later in the story, Wells does use both of these language techniques. We can also check this for style by asking the following questions: Is the writing formal or informal? The writing is formal and it is written in Standard English. Is the voice of the narrator in first, second or third person? The story is told to the reader by a first-person narrator. What is the vocabulary like? The vocabulary is detailed and uses many descriptive words chosen deliberately for effect so that they create connotationsthat help the Gothic ghost story effect. For example, with 'decaying yellow teeth'. The descriptive writing is well chosen to appeal to the senses with phrases like 'I heard' and the narrator describes in detail what he can see, including commenting on other people’s reactions in ways that also helps build up a ghost story atmosphere. What are the sentences like? The writer uses a mixture of sentence types and lengths. These include compound and complex sentences that are full of information and detail; the variety of punctuation allows the reader to absorb the detail more easily. What does this tell us about this example of descriptive writing? It is formal and written in Standard English. The style uses a first person narrator and is quite formal, and not conversational or chatty. Appealing to the senses Writers often use descriptive language that appeals to the five senses when they describe a setting. The five senses: 1. what a reader might see 2. what a reader might hear 3. what a reader might smell 4. what a reader might feel 5. what a reader might taste Improving your writing There are some effective ways to improve your descriptive sentences by adding extra detail. The first is by adding adjectives. Look at the image below and write down some adjectives that you could use. Some of the adjectives that might come to mind are: bright dark huge big busy Example 1 Now consider this sentence: I went to the fair. Add at least one adjective, maybe two and the sentence becomes much more descriptive: I went to the bright and busy fair. Now, change the verb for a word that is more precise in its meaning, that is more descriptive than 'went': I skipped to the bright and busy fair. Now, can you link another sentence with 'and' to make the sentence into a compound? I skipped to to the bright and busy fair and gazed at the amazing rides. Example 2 Can you improve this sentence by adding detail to the verb and by using similes? Look at the image again. See if you can come up with some ways to add detail to verbs - the words that tell what is happening at the fair. The fair went on through the night. Now add at least one adjective: The fair went on through the dark and starry night. Changing the verb by making a more precise vocabulary choice will give the reader an even better feel for the fair. The fair screamed through the dark and starry night. Can you add extra detail to make it a compound or even a complex sentence? The fair screamed through the dark and starry night, as if it couldn't be stopped. Better still, can you add an adverb to add detail to the action? The fair screamed noisily through the dark and starry night, as if it couldn't be stopped. The new detail could even be changed to make the whole sentence a simile: The fair screamed through the dark and starry night, like a set of raging fire engines. The difference between the first sentence and this last is obvious. The fair went on through the night. or The fair screamed through the dark, starry night, like a set of raging fire engines. When you are writing your own descriptions, always think as you proceed, or go back to your sentences in the first draft, to see how you can improve them by adding to them in these various ways. Structuring your writing - The photograph method One method that can be used to help with descriptive writing is to imagine you are looking at a photograph, almost as if you are a swivelling camera aiming at parts of a scene to record what is there. You can then home in on different parts of the scene. For example, if you were asked to write a detailed description of a place that is familar to you. First of all, try to get a very clear picture of the place in your mind’s eye. To help, you might imagine a scene in a graveyard, at sunset, in autumn: CREDIT: MICHIKO SMITH Task Now, imagining you are that camera, choose two key parts of the image that you would like to zoom in on; these will each be a close-up picture that will be described in its own paragraph and in great detail. You may choose the sun setting in the sky, and then, one of the trees. To start the description, you might, instead of zooming in, do what film makers often do when they begin with an 'establishing shot' and start your description with a 'wide angle shot'. You should aim to use the techniques that you have read and appeal to one or more senses. Remember also to adapt the start of your sentences, changing words around perhaps as you draft and redraft your work, adding in new writing techniques. If you start with a 'wide angle shot', you will describe the image as a whole and this can be your opening paragraph. Example Can you recognise the way the writer has used different techniques and also what effect they have? A 'wide angle' viewpoint The sky became luminous and golden as the sun began its final descent towards the horizon with the many wisps of cloud looking almost to be touching the tree tops. The gravestones stood tall as if ready to bow down to honour the setting sun. Some leaned and looked sad, as if they were about to cry; and some leaned, as if looking for support. Bare-branched trees seemed to be guarding the grass - the soldiers of the graveyard. Focus on the sun Although the golden ball illuminated everything, there was a strong feeling that it was somehow running away from those buried in the ground, to leave the world cold. Focus on the trees The trees had been stripped of any signs of summer. The skeletal branches arched downwards in despair, as if mourning the passing of the daylight.
