Creative WritingEffective Description

Tuesday 19th October 2021

Learning Purposes

• To learn how to describe a character or place effectively.

• To practise effective description.

• To identify effective description.

Future learning:• Develop knowledge of other

techniques to help construct an effective narrative.

Prior learning:• What word classes are

particularly important when developing effective descriptions?

Recap - Appositives

• A noun or noun phrase that renames another noun right beside it.

• They identify, explain or give more information about the main noun.

• They are separated from the rest of a sentence with a comma or pair of commas.

The guard, a new recruit, stood next to the gate.

A new recruit, the guard stood next to the gate.

Appositives

• Allows you to vary sentence structure.

• Enables you to include more information in a sentence and add complexity.

Identify the appositive!

The tree, a gnarled oak with long twisted branches, leaned precariously against the side of the barn.

A gnarled oak with long twisted branches, the tree leaned precariously against the side of the barn.

Appositives

Write a sentence including an appositive for the following nouns:

• Car

• Man

• Dog

• Forest

Describing effectively

• Don’t overuse ‘I’

• Too much narrative and not enough description

• Vocabulary choices – ensure that you use more effective adjectives and verbs

• Sentence structure and punctuation – be careful here.

• Ensure that you start your sentences in different ways and use complex sentences to develop detail

• Focus on one thing that interacts with the environment – fog, a cat, the rain (see example!)

Excellent examples

What techniques are used below?

• Looking down, a picturesque village stared back at her and a feeling of nostalgia flashed through her as she witnessed the brilliant turquoise sea below.

• Rapidly, with utter excitement, I trampled along the beach with the lavish, minute grains of sand oozing between my toes and the salty sensation of the air filling my nostrils with delight.

• The golden sand around me glistened in the remaining sunlight as overhead great flocks of birds choreographed a beautiful dance.

• The cat crept behind the bins, hopped up onto the shed roof from the fence, before standing guard over the garden for the rest of the afternoon.

2 minute challenge

Describe this image using 1 detailed sentence:

Effective description

Fog was outdoors, hanging over the river, creeping in and out of alleyways and passages, swirling thickly between the bare trees of all the parks and gardens of the city, and indoors, too, seething through cracks and crannies like sour breath, gaining a sly entrance at every opening of a door. It was a yellow fog, a filthy, evil-smelling fog, a fog that choked and blinded, smeared and stained. Groping their way blindly across roads, men and women took their lives in their hands, stumbling along pavements, they clutched at railings and at one another, for guidance. Sounds were deadened, shapes blurred.

What is at the centre of this description? How does it help to shape the setting?

The author has used the fog to introduce the river, parks, city and characters. The fog even impacts the sensory description of the setting. Here, the fog is personified so

much it is almost a character itself.

Develop your description (Print)

❑Use the rain in the image to introduce different items in the setting.

❑Include an adjective in the first sentence

❑Use a semi colon in your second sentence.

❑Start your third sentence with a subordinate clause beginning with the word: ‘Despite’.

❑Make your fourth sentence only 4 words long.

❑Use an appositive

❑Include two adverbs in your fifth sentence.

❑Start your sixth sentence with a past participle (ing verb).

❑Include the word ‘anxiously’ in your last sentence.

Proofread your writing!

• Check you have done everything on the list.

• Highlight a piece of description you think is effective and write a brief analysis about why it is effective.

• Rewrite a short section and improve it, annotating what you have improved.

Challenge!

• Select an image to describe.

• Create your own set of rules like on the ticklist.

• Write a description of the image!