Descriptive writing is often overlooked, but it’s an extremely important element of narrative writing. Good descriptive writing is an art form, but it’s also a science. You’ll hear writers say things like, “show it, don’t tell it” or “draw the scene with words.” Good storytellers build a scene or a character with equal care, not giving away the whole thing at once, not rushing to the end too quickly, dropping details carefully, often in the midst of other narrative elements.
Let’s look at two examples of story expositions. Which is more detailed? more descriptive? And how does the author achieve this level of artistic writing?
So the techniques that you should be able to 1) identify, and 2) begin to use in your own writing are:
- Use of interesting and descriptive details – both nouns and adjectives
- Use of action verbs at least as often as linking verbs.
- Use of participial phrases (and other detail phrases) to add details (if you struggle with this, study phrases here)
- Use of figurative language in descriptive writing
Your assignment is to choose the exposition of one of the stories we’ve been reading and to identify these techniques. Use Kami to annotate your PDF, and color code your annotations as you identify details (green), action verbs (yellow), participles and participial phrases (blue), and figurative language (orange).
Use the PDF in the “Materials” tab at the top of the page.