Students often think that writing descriptively requires a lot of flowery language—adjectives and adverbs like glorious and fantastic and incredible. That's a mistake. Writing a descriptive essay or paragraph requires lots of solid nouns and active verbs; and names of people, places, parts, and things.
To begin, the writer must have in mind a general impression he or she wants to convey about the person, place, thing, or event being described. Though that general impression can be written as a topic sentence or thesis, the writer does not have to state that general impression; it will become clear if the writer selects details that create that impression.
The Dominant Impression is the Topic Sentence or Thesis Statement
The Dominant Impression in a descriptive passage IS the topic sentence or thesis. Sometimes it is stated (explicit); sometimes the reader gets to come up with it himself. But the writer must stay very focused on that one dominant impression. Whether stated or not, it must never leave the writer's mind, and every word the writer puts down on the page must contribute to creating that dominant impression.
Examples of Dominant Impressions
The sea is turbulent and restless this afternoon.
The sea is calm and restful this afternoon.
In spring, the East Bay hills become vibrant and beautiful.
In winter, the East Bay hills return to a dormant, muted state.
Each of the Dominant Impressions above can be painted in words that are detailed and specific. These will be nouns and verbs. For example, Roaring waves came barreling against the seashore helps create a picture of a turbulent sea, while Foamy curls of sea water lapped at the seashore, creates a calm impression of the sea.
How else might you paint the picture of a turbulent sea? What other details in words can be used to paint a picture of a calm and restful sea?
The Description is in the Details
When we look at a landscape or a dress or an animal, our minds quickly form a general impression. That impression might be that the landscape is barren and arid, the dress is sexy, and the animal is ferocious. Those impressions come from our mind quickly adding up small details that, together, add up to desert, sexy, dangerous.
In descriptive writing, the writer must be very aware of the details that, together, create a particular impression. The writer selects those relevant details, and omits irrelevant details. The irrelevant details are those that don't contribute to the dominant impression the writer is hoping to create in the essay: arid, or sexy, or dangerous.
For example, if the landscape is arid, there should be no mention of dew or of an oasis. If the dress is sexy, it probably fits tightly over a woman's curves; and if the animal is ferocious, it will not be wagging its tail. The essay uses details to create a picture—or a sound or feel—of the subject.
Specific Nouns and Vivid Verbs Describe
To write details, the writer needs specific nouns that in themselves are a picture. For example, the generic noun dog does not paint any particular picture. But the specific noun Jack Russel Terrier immediately puts a very particular picture into the reader's mind, a picture that is very different from Collie. The descriptive essay or paragraph needs many specific nouns and very few, if any, generic ones.
Just as descriptive writing writing requires specific nouns, it also requires vivid verbs. These are verbs that the reader can visualize happening. For instance, the generic verb, throw does not create any particular impression. But the specific, or vivid, verbs hurl, lob, and pitch do. One would not want to be in the way of a hardball hurled at one's head. But if someone lobs a ball, the impression is very different.
Words Have Attitudes
Some words carry an attitude about the subject. For instance, using the word fragrance evokes a very different impression than the word odor. Fragrance has a positive, pleasant attitude, while odor has just the opposite attitude. So descriptive writing requires careful attention to the attitude—or connotation—of a word. Creating a picture of a pretty woman's face would require that the dot on her cheek be called a beauty mark, and not a mole.
Descriptions Can be Complex and Nuanced
Very few descriptions are one-dimensional. In fact, the interesting descriptions usually resonate with nuance or dynamics. See, for example, Truman Capote's Essay "New York." Or consider that a forest may give an impression of being both beautiful and scary. It is not necessary to oversimplify and create only the beautiful part of the impression. The two impressions can exist simultaneously.
This requires that the description contain details of beautiful sights and sounds, and details of frightening sights and sounds. These details can be woven together into one or more paragraphs, or written in separate paragraphs and combined at the end.
In a well-written descriptive essay or descriptive paragraph, the reader can infer—or figure out—the impression of the subject without being told. That is because the writer has intentionally selected details that carefully craft a particular picture and impression. The writer has shown this place or thing or event to the reader.
Leah Abramovitz - Laura Bernell, Professional Writer since 1984; Community College Adjunct English Instructor since 1982.
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