Details and Description
Description is necessary in your writing to help you inform, clarify, persuade, or create a mood. In some essays you will want your description as objective as you can make it; for example, you might describe a scientific experiment or a business transaction in straight factual detail. Other times, however, you will want to convey a particular attitude toward your subject; this approach to description is called subjective.
Note the differences between the following two descriptions of a tall, thin boy.
Objective – The eighteen-year-old boy was 6’1” and weighed 155 pounds.
Subjective – The young boy was as tall and scrawny as a birch tree in winter.
For each piece of writing that you do, you must first decide your purpose and whether it calls for objective or subjective details.
Details – to make any description clear to your reader, you must include a sufficient number of details that are specific rather than vague.
Note the differences between the following two details about Larry.
Larry is a sloppy dresser.
Larry wears dirty, baggy pants, shirts too small to stay tucked in, socks that
fail to match his pants or each other, and a stained coat the Salvation Army
rejected as a donation.
Specific details can turn vague, boring writing into crisp, clear images that can be reproduced in the mind like photographs.
Dominant Impression – In any description, the choice of details depends largely on the writer’s purpose and audience. Many descriptions, especially the subjective ones, will present a dominant impression—a controlling focus of a description that communicates a particular mood or feeling to the reader.
Here are two brief descriptions illustrating the concept of dominant impression. The first writer tries to create a mood of mystery:
Down a black winding road stands the abandoned old mansion, silhouetted against the
cloud-shrouded moon, creaking and moaning in the wet, chilling wind.
The second writer tries to present a feeling of joy and innocence.
A dozen kites filled the spring air, and around the bright picnic tables spread with hot
dogs, hamburgers, and slices of watermelon, Tom and Annie played away the warm
April day.
In the description of the deserted mansion, the writer would have violated the impression of mystery had the sentence read:
Down a black winding road stands the abandoned old mansion, surrounded by bright,
multicolored tulips in bloom.
Remember, you want to select only those details that advance your descriptive purpose. Omit any details you consider unimportant or distracting.
Sensory Details – If it’s appropriate, try using images that appeal to your readers’ five senses. For example, if you are describing your broken leg and the ensuing stay in a hospital, tell your readers how the place smelled, how it looked, what your cast felt like, how your pills tasted, and what noises you heard.
Sight The clean white corridors of the hospital resembled the set of a sci-fi movie, with everyone scurrying around identical starched uniforms.
Hearing At night, the only sounds I heard were the quiet squeakings of sensible
white shoes as the nurses made their rounds.
Smell From the moment I was wheeled into the hospital, the strong scent of
alcohol and formaldehyde surrounded me, giving me a headache.
Touch the hospital bedsheet felt as round and heavy as a feed sack.
Taste Every four hours they gave me an enormous gray pill whose aftertaste
reminded me of the stale licorice my great-aunt kept in candy dishes
around her house.
By appealing to the readers’ senses, you better enable them to imagine the subject you are describing.
Figurative Language – Figurative language produces images or pictures in the readers’ minds, helping them to understand unfamiliar or abstract subjects.
Simile – a comparison between two things using the words “like” or “as”
Example: Seeing exactly the video game he wanted, he moved as quickly as a
starving teenager spotting pie in a refrigerator full of leftover vegetables.
Metaphor – a direct comparison between two things that does not use “like” or “as”
Example: I was a puppet with my father controlling all the financial strings.
Personification – the attribution of human characteristics and emotions to inanimate
objects or abstract ideas
Example: The old teddy bear sat in a corner, dozing serenely before the fireplace.
Hyperbole – intentional exaggeration or overstatement for emphasis or humor
Example: The cockroaches in my kitchen had now grown to the size of carry-on
luggage.
Always remember your audience. Sometimes the object of our description is so clear in our minds that we forget that our readers haven’t seen it too. Consequently, the description we write turns out to be vague, bland, or skimpy. (Ex. The big tree was beautiful.). Ask yourself about your audience: what do they need to know to see this sight as clearly as I do? Then, fill in your description with ample, precise details that reveal the best picture possible.
Rewrite 5 of these simple sentences to make them more descriptive and appealing to readers.
The sunset was pretty.
The cat played with the ball.
The car turned the corner.
We sat on a beach.
We ate lunch at a café.
The flowers are pretty.
The things in the box were jumping up and down.
The horse grazed in the pasture.
The building is on the corner.
The dog was ready for his treat.
