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10 Ideas for Descriptive Writing

Posted by Melissa Donovan on March 27, 2012 ·
descriptive writing ideas

Descriptive writing ideas. Do your readers see what you see?

Descriptive writing is the artwork of portray an image with words.

In fiction, we describe settings and characters. In poetry, we describe scenes, experiences, and emotions. In artistic nonfiction, we describe reality.

Traditional literature was dense with description whereas trendy literature normally retains description to a minimum.

Evaluate the frilly descriptions in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy with the descriptions in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Both series relied on description to assist the readers visualize an imagined, fantastical world, but Rowling didn't use her treasured writing area to explain standard settings whereas Tolkien ceaselessly paused all motion and spent pages describing a single landscape.

This isn’t unique to Tolkien and Rowling; should you compare most literature from the beginning of of the 20th century and earlier to in the present day’s work, you’ll see that we simply don’t dedicate much time and area to description anymore.

I feel this radical change in how we method description is straight tied to the broad availability of film, television, and photography. Let’s say you have been living within the nineteenth century, writing a narrative about a tropical island for an audience of northern, city readers. You can be fairly certain that almost all of your readers had never seen such an island and had no idea what it regarded like. To offer your audience a full sense of your story’s panorama, you’d want pages of element describing the luxurious jungle, sandy beaches, and warm waters.

These days, everyone knows what a tropical island appears like, because of the broad availability of media. Even if you’ve never been to such an island, surely you’ve seen one on TV.
Descriptive Writing within the twenty first Century

This might explain why few books on the craft of writing address descriptive writing. The focus is often on different components, like character, plot, theme, and structure. While trendy readers don’t require prolonged descriptions, descriptive writing is an essential skill, even within the twenty first century.

For contemporary writers, the trick is to make the outline as precise and detailed as attainable while preserving it to a minimum. Most readers need characters and motion with just enough description in order that they'll think about the story because it’s unfolding.

Descriptive writing is very essential for speculative fiction writers and poets. For those who’ve created a fantasy world, then you’ll have to deftly describe it to readers. Lewis Carroll not solely described Wonderland; he additionally described the fantastical creatures that inhabited it. In poetry, the problem is to explain things in a approach that is visceral.

Simple descriptions are surprisingly straightforward to execute. All it's important to do is take a look at something (or imagine it) and write what you see. However nicely crafted descriptions require writers to pay diligence to word alternative, to explain solely those elements which are most essential, and to use participating language to paint an image in the reader’s mind.

10 Descriptive Writing Ideas

Listed here are some descriptive writing ideas that will encourage you whereas providing alternatives to follow writing description. For those who don’t have much expertise with descriptive writing, you may find that your first few attempts are flat and boring. For those who can’t maintain readers engaged, they will wander off. Work at crafting descriptions which might be compelling and mesmerizing.

   1. Go to one in every of your favourite spots and write an outline of the setting: it may very well be your bed room, favourite coffee shop, or native park. Depart people, dialogue, and motion out of it. Simply deal with explaining what the house looks like.
   2. Who's your favourite character from the films? Describe the character from head to toe. Show the reader not only what the character appears to be like like but additionally how the character acts. Do that with out including action or dialogue. Bear in mind: description solely!
   3. Thirty years ago we didn’t have cell telephones or the Internet. Now we have cell telephones that may access the Internet. Think of a device or gadget that we’ll have thirty years from now and describe it.
   4. Since trendy fiction is mild on description, many young and new writers typically fail to incorporate descriptions, even when the reader needs them. Go through certainly one of your writing initiatives and examine to see that components readers may not be conversant in are adequately described.
   5. Sometimes in a story, a little bit description gives respite from all the motion and dialogue. Make a list of things from a narrative you’re working on (devices, characters, settings, etc.) and for each one, write a short description of no more than seventy five words.
   6. As mentioned, Tolkien often spent pages describing a single landscape. Choose one in all your favourite items of basic literature, find a lengthy passage of description, and rewrite it. Attempt to reduce the descriptive word rely in half.
   7. Whenever you read a book, use a highlighter to mark sentences and paragraphs that contain description. Don’t spotlight each adjective and adverb. Search for longer passages which might be dedicated to description.
   8. Write an outline for a child. Choose something reasonably difficult, just like the solar system. How do you describe it in such a way that a little one understands how he or she matches into it?
   9. Most writers dream of someday writing a book. Describe your ebook cover.
  10. Write a one-page description of yourself.

If you have any descriptive writing concepts to add to this checklist, be happy to share them in the comments.