Descriptive Writing

1. Descriptive Writing

2. A writing style that portrays people, places, things, moments, and theories with enough VIVID detail to help the reader create a mental picture of what is being written about. What is Descriptive writing?

3. There are three characteristics of a purely descriptive essay worthy of remembering. • A single, clear dominant impression • Objective or subjective • Reader visualization Principles of descriptive writing

4. A descriptive essay has one, clear dominant impression. If, for ex. you are describing a snowfall, it is important for you to decide and to let your reader know if it is threatening or beautiful In order to have one dominant impression, the snowfall can’t be both threatening and beautiful. Dominant impression

5. The dominant impression guides the author’s selection of detail and is thereby made clear to the reader in the thesis sentence. Dominant impression con’t.

6. A descriptive essay can be both objective or subjective. This allows for a wide choice of tone, diction and attitude. For instance, an objective description on one’s dog will mention facts such as height, weight, coloring and so forth. Objective/subjective

7. A subjective description of a dog will include the previously mentioned details, but will also stress the author’ feeling toward the dog, as well as its personality and habits. Objective/subjective con’t.

8. The purpose of a purely descriptive essay is to involve the reader enough so he/she can actually visualize the things being described. Therefore, it is important to use specific and concrete details. Reader Visualization

9. A descriptive essay relies on concrete, sensory detail to communicate its point. Remember, we have five (5) senses, not one or two! Conventions

10. The author of a descriptive essay must carefully select details to support the dominant impression. In other words, the author has the license to omit details which are incongruent with the dominant impression unless the dominant impression which points out the discrepancies. Convention cont’d.

11. Description very often relies on emotion to convey its point. Because of this, verbs, adverbs and adjectives convey more to the reader than do nouns. Unless the description is objective, you must be sure that the dominant impression conveys an attitude. Conventions cont’d.

12. Check details to make sure they are consistent with the dominant impression. You might want to write down the five senses on a piece of paper and check to see if that you have covered all of them. Try moving your reader through space and time chronologically (describe a train ride from start to destination).

13. Use a then-and-now approach to show decay, change or improvement. Ex. – The house you grew up in might now be a rambling shack. There are endless variations on this strategy.

14. Select an emotion, any emotion you can think of. Write a descriptive essay describing the emotion of your choice. Be sure to leave a dominant impression, utilize vivid language, and challenge the reader to actually visualize or be able to feel the emotion you are describing. Descriptive writing assignment #1