Digging for Description

How can you improve description in your writing? Don’t leave it to adjectives. Avoid adverbs. Instead, dig deeper.

My favorite exercise for descriptive writing comes from James Scott Bell’s book Revision & Self-Editing. It kicks up creativity, especially for describing characters’ emotions. Here’s Bell’s two step exercise:

1. Brainstorm three nouns that could be associated with an emotion.

2. Write a sentence using a strong verb that connects one of the nouns to the emotion, and stretch yourself to not stop with similies and metaphors.

Here are examples I’ve written, using this exercise:

Emotion: Fear            Nouns: Coffin, Cave, Corpse

1. A coffin of fear slammed its lid. He couldn’t breathe.

2. My fear deepened into a cave without end.

3. Fear danced on the corpse of my courage. I screamed.

Here’s another example from my book, I Be Brave, which I’m currently writing:

Emotion:  Jealousy        Noun:  Poison 

 Mother rested her palm on Henry’s shoulder.

The poison of jealousy seeped under my skin and into my blood. I tried to shield my heart, to stop it from pulsing the black hurt through every vein. But the poison spread, and my chest ached. Would she ever touch me like that again?

Try this simple exercise and share it as a comment! Don’t forget: Each comment you post throughout the month, puts your name in a drawing for a free book. (The person who leaves the most comments wins).

Happy writing!

Gretchen Carlson       http://gretchen-carlson.com http://gretchencarlsonwriter@gmail.com