Overview

Descriptive writing is writing that does more than tell something—it shows it. How? By providing carefully chosen and well-placed details. Effective descriptive details can bring to life a person, place, or thing.

Descriptive writing often begins with a memory or observation. The details that make something stand out in your mind become the raw material for creating a description. Adding sensory details to your writing will make it possible for your reader almost to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel what you describe. Sensory details can evoke strong images that your reader can react to and remember.

Arranging the details in a logical spatial order can help your readers to picture a scene in their minds. When you use spatial order, you move from one detail to the next in your description. Transition words, such as under, behind, and to the right, help to link the details.

A good description includes precise, or exact, language. Strong and meaningful descriptions not only give life to your characters, settings, and plots; they give life to your writing as well.