Improve descriptive writing

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How can we improve descriptive writing part 2

This will show you one way to create atmosphere in your descriptive writing.

Begin with some vocabulary

Write a list of words that describe how water moves. Use a thesaurus to add to your list but best to use only words you have already of.

Here’s my list:

  • Ooze, lap, lick, wash, splash, soak, saturated, bathe, shower, infuse, sluice, swamp, overflow, spill, slop, drop, leak, drip, sprinkle, spatter, sweat, baptize

Now use them to describe sunlight entering a room.

And here’s my example:

  • The early morning sunlight leaked under the curtain, flowed over the windowsill and saturated the duvet cover.

Tip: The triplet (leaked, flowed, saturated) constitutes a complex structure and is a developed idea, two top band criteria at Key Stage 4.

Using the elements

The trick here is to describe one element (earth, fire, air and water) in terms of another. Rather than earth, I think it works better to use words that describe things growing in the earth (sprouting, shooting, germinating, rooting, branching, flowering, blooming, for example).

Write a list of words for each element

Here’s my list for war:

  • Ooze, lap, lick, wash, splash, soak, saturated, bathe, shower, infuse, sluice, swamp, overflow, spill, slop, drop, leak, drip, sprinkle, spatter, sweat, baptize

Use three words from you list to describe an object that belongs to a different element.

Here’s another example: people on a railway station described in terms of water.

  • The platform was flooded with people: tourists flowed through the turnstiles; businessmen oozed from the train doors; the elderly leaked from the escalators; children, bright in their school uniforms were sluiced down the escalators; and, a pool of rags and human limbs stagnated by a refuse bin.

Tip: If you have a pattern, it can be effective to introduce a contrast in the last element; so, above still water contrasts with the moving water that precedes it and a noun, pool, contrasts with the verbs.

Try it with animal words

  • Sunlight snuffled the curtain edges, growled under the door, pawed to be let into the house.

Try horse, cat or insect words – or any other animal. And then see if you can come up with ideas of your own.

Tip: You can use ~ed or ~ing endings on your verbs.