How To Write Gooder: Effective Diction and
Imagery
Specific Details & Descriptive Words
English 10 Intensified: Burns
Specific Details and Descriptive Words: your
reader wasn’t there, but you have the power to convince
her/him that s/he was. But, in order to do so, you need to
offer precise coordinates; sending your reader to Ohio will
not get him/her to Cleveland any more than suggesting
the day was hot will cause droplets of sweat to form on
his/her forehead.
 According to The Oxford English Dictionary, there
are over 600,000 words in the English language,
and according to essayist Bill Bryson, more than
200,000 words are in common use: try using some
of them!
 Think about words that pin down precisely
what you want to say: even though Mother Goose
might disagree, mice, especially if they are blind, do
not “run”—they scamper, or scatter, or, given their
visual impairment, they might even stumble. Is
blood really “red”? Is crimson, or scarlet, a more
accurate adjective? Or is it really black? How long
has it been there? How diffuse is the light? Does the
color of the shirt the victim was wearing make it
appear darker than it otherwise might be?
 Offer details that appeal to the five (human)
senses. It is senses which activate memory; actually
narrative is creating memory, but the narrative
writer relies on accessing sensory data which we all
share. Whitman’s “lilacs” are so powerfully aromatic
that even an Arctic Explorer reading the poem in the
midst of an ice floe might be tricked into inhaling a
deep breath of spring.
 Again, your reader wasn’t there. Your reader might
not even know what “there” is, let alone “what” or
“who.” Details are not frivolous in narrative writing;
details are narrative writing. Strip details from a
narrative and you, the story teller, cease to exist (and
once you disappear, you can’t really expect anyone to
hang around listening to your story can you?)
The passage which follows is the opening to Aldous
Huxley’s Brave New World:
A squat grey building of only thirty-four
stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL
LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING
CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State’s motto,
COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY.
The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards
the north. Cold for all the summer beyond the panes, for
all the tropical heat of the room itself, a harsh thin light
glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some
draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic gooseflesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly
shining porcelain of a laboratory. Wintriness responded
to wintriness. The overalls of the workers were white,
their hands gloved with a pale corpse-coloured rubber.
The light was frozen, dead, a ghost. Only from the
yellow barrels of the microscopes did it borrow a certain
rich and living substance, lying across the polished tubes
like butter, streak after luscious streak down the work
tables.
 We are introduced to the most unremarkable of
buildings: “squat” and “grey.” Yet, Huxley’s specific
detail “only” introduces us to what must be a
remarkable city—34 stories is seen as “squat”? How
tall must the surrounding buildings be to produce
this qualifier? (Incidentally, and at the risk of
turning this into a grammar assignment, why does
Huxley choose to begin his narrative with a
fragment?? What did his English Teacher say about
this?!?)
 “north,” “cold,” “goose-flesh,” “wintriness,” “white”
and “frozen” certainly offer meaningful details about
the setting—you don’t need a weatherman to tell you
it ain’t warm in the CLH/CC. However, what do
these details tell you about the people who work
there?
 What about “thin,” “draped,” “pallid,” “bleakly,”
“pale,” “corpse-coloured,” “dead” and “ghost”?
Lifeless workers in a lifeless building, right? But
this building is a “hatchery,” responsible for
producing LIFE. The supreme irony of this passage
(and the novel as a whole) fails without detail.
Exercise 1 (Accessing the Senses)
The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards
the north. Cold for all the summer beyond the panes, for
all the tropical heat of the room itself, a harsh thin light
glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some
draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic gooseflesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly
shining porcelain of a laboratory. Wintriness responded
to wintriness. The overalls of the workers were white,
their hands gloved with a pale corpse-coloured rubber.
The light was frozen, dead, a ghost. Only from the
yellow barrels of the microscopes did it borrow a certain
rich and living substance, lying across the polished tubes
like butter, streak after luscious streak down the work
tables.
Re-consider the passage above in terms of how many of his
readers’ five senses Huxley is able to access. You should include
as many details from the passage as you are able. Some details
can certainly be used to support more than one sense; I am not
guaranteeing all five senses will be used.
Sight:
“a harsh thin light glared” through the window
hungrily seeking”
“bleakly shining porcelain”
“the polished tubes”
In this opening scene, Huxley provokes
our sense of vision by portraying light
shining, but only dimly. The reader is forced
to react to this light because it is different
from what is expected.
Sound (Hearing):
“Wintriness responded to wintriness.”
“streak after luscious streak”
“frozen, dead, a ghost”
Through his careful employment of diction,
Huxley presents a laboratory which is utterly, icily
silent, save for the faint rhythm of “luscious
streak[s]” across the microscope slides.
Taste:
Touch:
“the tropical heat”
Smell:
Now that you have collected the data above, compose a
statement that reveals how Huxley uses sensory diction
to create imagery:
In his introduction to Brave New World, Huxley
How To Write Gooder: Narrative Writing
Part III B: Specific Details & Descriptive Words
English 10 ADV (Burns): Points Available (20)
(10 points) Exercise 1 (Specific Details/Descriptive Words)
A.
1. It was very windy.
2. The wind blew hard.
3. The wind screamed.
4. The wind screamed across the tops of trees, pelting the night.
5. The trees trembled in the screaming wind like helpless prey.
6. Trees threw up their useless arms to stop the screaming wind, branches breaking like
barroom promises.
Each of the six sentences above has been strengthened through the addition of
specific details/descriptive words; however, the intent of the original sentence has
not been lost. Follow this process for 2 of the 3 simple sentences below; each
consecutive sentence should add, specify or modify a detail without losing the
meaning of the original sentence.
1. He bled.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
2. I ran home.
3. The night was dark.
6.