Painting with Basic Brush Strokes: Descriptive Writing Techniques
specific, concrete nouns
adjectives shifted out of order
Specific, Concrete Nouns
Precise nouns help your reader really see what you are describing.
General: Our neighbor Boo gave us several things and saved our lives.
|Specific: Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. --Harper Lee|
General: It snowed last night in town, but today the sky was clear and snow was everywhere.
|Specific: The streets glistened with fresh snow and the sky was a blameless blue. Snow blanketed every rooftop and weighed on the branches of the stunted mulberry trees that lined our street. Overnight, the snow had nudged its way into every crack and gutter. --Khaled Hosseini|
General: The rebels handed out weapons of all kinds to the people.
|Specific: . . . muskets were being distributed—so were cartridges, powder, and ball, bars of iron and wood, knives, axes, pikes, every weapon that distracted ingenuity could discover or devise.. --Charles Dickens|
Write a descriptive sentence using precise nouns.Try: The student put everything in his (her) bookbag.
Energize your writing by eliminating passive verbs, replacing weak being verbs, and enlivening dull verbs.
assive: Juliet's expressions of love were heard by Romeo, hiding in the garden. Active: Hiding in the garden, Romeo heard Juliet's expressions of love. Passive: The pocket watch was discovered in the hollow of the tree by the children. Active: The children discovered the pocket watch in the hollow of the tree. Passive: The worm-eaten stool and table were beaten to pieces in a few blows by Defarge.
Active: Defarge . . . turning on the worm-eaten stool and table, beat them to pieces in a few blows. --Charles Dickens
Replace being verbs with more vivid action verbs.
verb: The mockingbirds were in the large oak tree by the porch.
Action verb:The mockingbirds perched in the large oak tree by the porch.
Being verbs: A tremendous roar was coming from the throat of Saint Antoine, and a forest of naked arms were in the air
like shrivelled branches of trees in a winter wind.
Action verbs: A tremendous roar arose from the throat of Saint Antoine, and a forest of naked arms struggled in the air
like shrivelled branches of trees in a winter wind . . . --Charles Dickens
Replace dull, general verbs with more descriptive, vivid verbs.
Dull verb: A cold breeze blew through my hair.
Vivid verb: A cold breeze wafted through my hair. --Khaled Hosseini
Dull verb: Defarge gave orders, handed out arms, pushed this man back, pulled this man forward, took away one man's weapon
to give it to another, worked in the thickest of the uproar.
Vivid verb: Defarge himself . . . issued orders, issued arms, thrust this man back, dragged this man forward, disarmed one to arm another,
laboured and strove in the thickest of the uproar. --Charles Dickens
was tossed by the jagged gray waves while the boy who was in the water reached for the rope the sailors threw to him.
The small ship
In your writing, revise sentences that contain passive, being, or dull verbs.
An appositive is a noun phrase that adds a second image to a previous noun, expanding details in the reader’s imagination.
The path, a faintly worn trail, guided the traveler through the dense forest.
He had high cheekbones, a sharp-cut nose, a spare, dark face, the face of a man used to giving orders, the face of an aristocrat. –-Richard Connell
He threw over her shoulders the wraps he had brought for going home, modest garments of everyday life whose shabbiness clashed with the stylishness of her evening clothes. --Guy de Maupassant
Write a descriptive sentence using an appositive phrase. Try: The singer bowed to the crowd after her song.
Write one or more noun phrases renaming one or more of the underlined nouns in the sentence.
Participles, verbals ending in –ed and –ing, evoke action.
Add participles to sentence beginnings:
|Squabbling, chasing, giggling, kids were flinging snowballs.|
Add participial phrases to sentence beginnings:
|Squabbling, chasing one another, giggling with triumph when they hit their targets, kids were flinging snowballs.|
Add participles & participial phrases throughout a sentence:
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. --Edgar Allan Poe
Unencumbered with luggage, they [travelers on horseback] would soon overtake the coach, and, passing it and preceding it on the road, would order its horses in advance, and greatly facilitate its progress during the precious hours of the night, when delay was the most to be dreaded. --Charles Dickens
Swinging the hatchet at the slender elm tree and trimming away the smaller branches, the boy pulled the severed limbs away with his other hand, satisfied with his efforts, for once, filling the wagon with enough wood to keep his family's hearth supplied for the next month.
Write a descriptive sentence using more or more participles or participial phrases. Try: The mountain climber scaled the cliff.
Prepositions link nouns and verbs to a descriptive detail.
The result is a prepositional phrase which adds more information in a compact, efficient way.
He saw, by the table between the two tall candles and the fire, a young lady of not more than seventeen, in a riding cloak, and still holding her straw hat by its ribbon in her hand. --Charles Dickens
His eyes made out the shadowy outlines of a palatial chateau; it was set on a high bluff, and on three sides of it cliffs dived down, where the sea licked its greedy lips in the shadows. --Richard Connell
Add more detail to your sentences using prepositional phrases. Try: The candlelight flickered as she waited.
Adjectives Shifted Out Of Order
Adjectives placed out of order amplify the details of an image.
Adjectives in order before the noun:
|The rough, white-tipped, surging waves pounded the shore in advance of the storm.|
Adjectives shifted out of order for effect:
|The large waves, white-tipped and surging, pounded the shore in advance of the storm.|
Consider the effect of the adjectives in these sentences by William Stafford in "The Osage Orange Tree":
It was a poor newspaper, by the way, cheap, sensational, unreliable.
She glanced toward the barn and leaned toward me. "Go away!" . . . I stood there, half-defiant, half-ashamed.
Write a sentence with three adjectives describing a noun. Place the adjectives in regular order before the noun.
If you cannot think of a sentence, try adding adjectives to this sentence:
The wind blew through the town. (Your adjectives may describe either the wind or the town.)
Now, rewrite the sentence by shifting the adjectives out of order.
Absolutes are two-word combinations—a noun and an –ing or –ed verb added onto a sentence.
|Arms stretched out, legs twisting, the skateboarder skimmed the edge of the railing.|
Absolute phrases are formed by adding other descriptive detail to the absolute.
|Fingers fumbling nervously with the corners of the pages, the young student read her paragraph in a faint whisper.|
Imagine the comma as a zoom lens focusing in on the images:
|Michael raced to end of the pool, feet kicking up a wake of wild, frothy waves.|
Write a descriptive sentence using an absolute phrase. Try: The lion crouched in the tall grass.
Use conjunctions to join shorter sentences together and to consolidate longer clauses for more effective sentences.
Coordinating Conjunctions: and but for nor or so yet
Sweat popped out on the boy's face, and he began to struggle. --Langston Hughes
You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.
The runner knew he had lost the race, yet he continued on, determined to finish.
either . . . or whether . . . or both . . . and
neither . . . nor not only . . . but also just as . . . so
Either the football team will eat before they leave, or they will stop on the way.
Not only is To Kill a Mockingbird still a very popular novel, but also the film is considered to be excellent.
accordingly however otherwise as a result
additionally indeed similarly at last
afterward instead soon for instance
also later subsequently in addition
besides next still in comparison
consequently meanwhile then in contrast
finally moreover therefore in fact
furthermore nevertheless thus in the same way
on the other hand
In the long run, men hit only what they aim at; therefore, they had better aim at something high. --Henry David Thoreau
If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don't accept, because you will lose one friend;
on the other hand, if two strangers come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend. --Saint Augustine
after as though provided that until
although because since when
as before so that whenever
as far as even if than where
as if even though that wherever
as long as if though while
as soon as in order that unless
|Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events. --Albert Einstein|
OR Because it is colored by today's events, memory is deceptive .
I always avoid prophesying beforehand because it is a much better policy to prophesy
after the event has already taken place. --Winston Churchill
|Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. --Ralph Waldo Emerson|