Descriptive Essay Writing Skills Text

Posted by melissa donovan on august 25, 2015 how do you use descriptive writing? writing description is a necessary skill for most writers. Whether were writing an essay or a story, we usually reach a point where we need to describe something by explaining what it looks like or how it works. But many writers find description challenging to write, and many readers find it boring to read.

A person in the american midwest who had never seen a tropical island would need a detailed description in order to visualize it. Nowadays, thanks to technology and modern media, most of us know what a tropical island looks like no description required. Weve become increasingly visual, which means its getting harder to use words to describe a scene, especially if it only exists in our imaginations. Although some writers are naturally gifted at writing description, its a struggle for many of us.

The term descriptive writing can mean a few different things: descriptive essay: a descriptive essay is pure description and designed to build skills in descriptive writing. Description as part of a larger work: this is the most common kind of descriptive writing. It is usually a sentence or paragraph sometimes multiple paragraphs that provide a description, usually to help the reader visualize whats happening. An example would be a section of text within a novel that establishes the setting by describing a room or a passage that introduces a character with a physical description.

Writing that is descriptive or vivid an authors style: some authors can weave description throughout the prose, interspersing it through the dialogue and action. Its a style of writing that imparts description without using large blocks of text that are explicitly focused on description. Depending on what you write, youve probably experimented with one of more of these types of descriptive writing. Ive encountered writers whose descriptions are so smooth and seamless that i easily visualize whats happening without even noticing that im reading description. Some authors craft descriptions that are so lovely, i do notice but in a good way.

On the other hand, poorly crafted descriptions can really impede a readers experience. Most readers prefer action and dialogue to lengthy descriptions, so while a paragraph here and there can certainly help readers better visualize whats happening, pages and pages of description can increase the risk that theyll set your work aside and never pick it up again. There are exceptions to every rule, so the real trick is to know when lengthy descriptions are warranted and when they are just boring. Here are some general tips for descriptive writing:  use distinct descriptions that stand out and are memorable.

For example, dont write that a character is five foot two with brown hair and blue eyes. Make description active: consider the following description of a room: there was a bookshelf in the corner. Try something like this: a massive oak desk sat below a large picture window and beside a shelf overflowing with books.