3 Descriptive writing

Reading
When you are writing something imaginative – such as a story or an account of
an interesting personal experience – you can make your writing more effective
by including detailed descriptions of people and places. To write effective
descriptions, you need a clear picture in your mind of who or what it is that
you are setting out to describe. Doing this allows you to focus on precise
details which make the descriptions come alive in the reader’s mind.Good
writers incorporate descriptive passages into the overall piece of writing rather
than write descriptively for the sake of it.
A good rule to follow in writing descriptions is to base what you describe on
your own experiences. This doesn’t mean that writers always describe exactly
what they have seen or people they have met, but that they use their real life
experiences as a basis for their descriptions and then develop them from there.
Here are fi ve examples of descriptive writing (Extracts 1 to 5). Read the
passages carefully and answer the questions that follow. All of these passages
are taken from books written in the last 150 years or so (the earliest was
published in 1854). Extracts 1 and 2 describe very hot days in the countryside.
Extract 1 is set in the island of Jamaica in the Caribbean; Extract 2 is set in
Botswana in Southern Africa.

Extract 1: A High Wind in Jamaica

The sun was still red and large: the sky above cloudless, and light blue glaze poured over baking
clay: but close over the ground a dirty grey haze hovered. As they followed the lane towards the
sea they came to a place where, yesterday, a fair-sized spring had bubbled up by the roadside.
Now it was dry. But even as they passed some water splashed out, and then it was dry again,
although gurgling inwardly to itself. But the group of children were hot, far too hot to speak to
one another: they sat on their ponies as loosely as possible, longing for the sea.

The morning advanced. The heated air grew quite easily hotter, as if from some enormous
furnace from which it could draw at will. Bullocks only shifted their stinging feet when they could
bear the soil no longer: even the insects were too lethargic to pipe, the basking lizards hid
themselves and panted. It was so still you could have heard the least buzz a mile off. Not a naked
fi sh would willingly move his tail. The ponies advanced because they must. The children ceased
even to think.

Richard Hughes

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Exercise 1: A High Wind in Jamaica

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1 From Extract 1 choose three details that convey the extreme heat of the day.
Give reasons for your choice.
2 How did the heat affect the children?
3 Explain, using your own words, how the animal life responded to the heat.
4 Later in the day, a hurricane hits the area. How do the descriptions in the
passage suggest that something serious is about to happen?

Extract 2:
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

Suddenly she saw the house, tucked away behind the trees almost in the shadow of the
hill. It was a bare earth house in the traditional style; brown mud walls, a few glassless
wi dows, with a knee-height wall around the yard. A previous owner, a long time ago, had
painted
n designs on the wall, but neglect and the years had scaled them off and only
their ghosts remained … She opened the door and eased herself out of the van. The sun
was riding high; its light prickled at her skin. They were too far west here, too close to
the Kalahari Desert, and her unease increased. This was not the comforting land she
had grown up with; this was the merciless Africa, the waterless land.

Alexander McCall Smith

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Exercise 2: The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

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Descriptive Writing

1 From Extract 2 choose three words or phrases that suggest that the house and its
surroundings were unwelcoming and hostile. Give reasons for your choice.
2 Explain the effects of the sun on the woman in the passage.
3 What was it that she did not like about this part of the Kalahari Desert?
4 We learn in the book that the lady detective is visiting the house of a murderer. How
does the description of the house and its surroundings emphasise this point?
Extracts 3 and 4 describe living beings. Gerald Durrell was a naturalist,
conservationist and zoo keeper. In Extract 3 he describes a family of young
hedgehogs that he looked after when he was a young boy. Charles Dickens, on
the other hand, describes an unpleasant nineteenth century factory owner in his
novel Hard Times in Extract 4.

Extract 3: Birds, Beasts and Relatives

They are covered with a thick coating of spikes but these are white and soft, as though
made of rubber. They gradually harden and turn brown when the babies are a few weeks
old. When they are old enough to leave the nursery the mother leads them out and shows
them how to hunt for food; they walk in line, the tail of one held in the mouth of the baby
behind. The baby at the head of the column holds tight to mother’s tail with grim
determination, and they move through the twilit hedgerows like a strange prickly
centipede …
Mine were always ready for food at any hour of the day or night. You had only to touch
the box and a chorus of shrill screams arose from four little pointed faces poking out of
the leaves, each head decorated with a crew-cut of white spikes; and the little black
noses would wave desperately from side to side in an effort to locate the bottle.
Most baby animals know when they have had enough, but in my experience this does
not apply to baby hedgehogs. Like four survivors from a raft, they flung themselves on
to the bottle and sucked and sucked and sucked as though they had not had a decent
meal in weeks. If I had allowed it they would have drunk twice as much as was good for
them. As it was, I think I tended to overfeed them, for their tiny legs could not support
the weight of their fat bodies, and they would advance across the carpet with a curious
swimming motion, their tummies dragging on the ground. However, they progressed
very well: their legs grew stronger, their eyes opened, and they would even make
daring excursions as much as 15 centimetres away from their box.
Gerald Durrell

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Exercise 3: Birds, Beasts and Relatives
1 From Extract 3 write down six facts that you learn about hedgehogs.
2 Choose four words or phrases from the passage that refer to the hedgehogs as if
they were human children. How does each of these expressions help
you to imagine the appearance and behaviour of the animals?

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3 Explain, using your own words, the way in which the hedgehogs drank from the
bottle of milk.
4 Explain, using your own words, the effect of having drunk too much milk on the
hedgehogs.

Extract 4: Hard Times

He was a rich man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not. A big, loud man, with a
stare, and a metallic laugh. A man made out of a coarse material, which seemed to have been
stretched to make so much of him. A man with a great puffed head and forehead, swelled veins
in his temples, and such a strained skin to his face that it seemed to hold his eyes open, and lift
his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading appearance on him of being infl ated like a balloon,
and ready to start. A man who could never suffi ciently vaunt himself a self-made man. A man
who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old
ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility.

A year or two younger than his eminently practical friend, Mr Bounderby looked older; his seven
or eight and forty might have had the seven or eight added to it again, without surprising
anybody. He had not much hair. One might have fancied he had talked it off; and that what was
left, all standing up in disorder, was in that condition from being constantly blown about by his
windy boastfulness.

In the formal drawing-room of Stone Lodge, standing on the

hearthrug, warming himself before the fi re, Mr Bounderby
delivered some observations to Mrs Gradgrind on the
circumstance of its being his birthday. He stood before the fi re,
partly because it was a cool spring afternoon, though the sun
shone; partly because the shade of Stone Lodge was always
haunted by the ghost of damp mortar; partly because he thus
took up a commanding position, from which to subdue Mrs
Gradgrind.

‘I hadn’t a shoe to my foot. As to a stocking, I didn’t know such a

thing by name. I passed the day in a ditch, and the
night in a pigsty. That’s the way I spent my tenth birthday. Mr Bounderby Not
that a ditch was new to me, for I was born in a ditch.’

Charles Dickens

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Exercise 4: Hard Times
1 How old is Mr Bounderby from Extract 4?
2 What do you think the phrase ‘metallic laugh’ suggests about Mr Bounderby and
his interests?

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Descriptive Writing

3 Choose four words or phrases from the passage which suggest that Mr
Bounderby is a thoroughly unpleasant man. Explain as fully as you can how the
expressions you have chosen suggest his unpleasantness.
4 Explain what is meant by ‘the Bully of humility’.
5 Give one piece of evidence from the passage to show that Mr Bounderby is a
bully.
6 Choose two descriptions that suggest that the writer is making fun of Mr
Bounderby. Explain the reasons for your choice.
The final passage – Extract 5 – is by the Irish writer, Flann O’Brien, and describes a
rather creepy old house.

Extract 5: The Third Policeman

I opened the iron gate and walked as softly as I could up the weed-tufted gravel drive.
My mind was strangely empty. I felt no glow of pleasure and was unexcited at the
prospect of becoming rich. I was occupied only with the mechanical task of finding a
black box.
The front door was closed and set far back in a very deep porch. The wind and rain had
whipped a coating of gritty dust against the panels and deep into the crack where the
door opened, showing that it had been shut for years. Standing on a derelict flower-bed, I
tried to push open the first window on the left. It yielded to my strength, raspingly and
stubbornly. I clambered through the opening and found myself, not at once in a room, but
crawling along the deepest window-ledge I had ever seen. After I had jumped noisily down
upon the floor, I looked up and the open window seemed very far away and much too
small to have admitted me.
The room where I found myself was thick with dust, musty and empty of all furniture.
Spiders had erected great stretchings of their web about the fireplace. I made my way
quickly to the hall, threw open the door of the room where the box was and paused on
the threshold. It was a dark morning and the weather had stained the windows with
blears of grey wash which kept the brightest part of the weak light from coming in. The
far corner of the room was a blur of shadow. I had a sudden urge to have done with my
task and be out of this house forever.
Flann O’Brien

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Exercise 5: The Third Policeman

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1 Where does the narrator of the story first land once he has climbed through the
window?
2 What evidence can you find in the second paragraph that the house has ‘been
shut for years’?
3 Why is it difficult for the narrator to see into the far corner of the room in the
final paragraph?
4 What evidence is there in the final paragraph that the inside of the house is
deserted?
5 Choose five words or phrases that suggest to you that there is something
mysterious about the house. Give reasons for your choices.

Reading for pleasure

Here are two more descriptions of places. The first one is another extract from
Hard Times in which Dickens describes a fictional industrial town and makes
it appear like a vision of hell. The second passage is an entirely different
picture. It is an extract from another book by Gerald Durrell called My Family
and Other Animals. In the passage he describes the appearance of a villa in
which he and his family lived when he was a child growing up on the Greek
island of Corfu. Read the two passages and think about how the writers
achieve their effects – you may find this of help when you do the writing tasks
on page 51–52.

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Descriptive Writing

Hard Times
It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had
allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of
a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of
smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and
a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there
was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked
monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness. It
contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still more like
one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same
hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every
day was the same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the
next.

You saw nothing in Coketown but

what was severely workful. […] All
the public inscriptions in the town
were painted alike, in severe
characters of black and white. The
jail might have been the infi rmary,
the infi rmary might have been the
jail, the town-hall might have been
either, or both, or anything else, for
anything that appeared to the
contrary in the graces of their
construction.
Fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the material aspect of the town; fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the
immaterial. The M’Choakumchild school was all fact, and the school of design was all fact, and
the relations between master and man were all fact, and everything was fact between the lying-
in hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn’t state in fi gures, or show to be
purchaseable in the cheapest market and saleable in the dearest, was not, and never should be,
world without end, Amen.

Charles Dickens

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47
My Family and Other Animals
Halfway up the slope, guarded by a group of tall, slim, cypress-trees, nestled a small
strawberry-pink villa, like some exotic fruit lying in the greenery. The cypress-trees
undulated gently in the breeze, as if they were busily painting the sky a still brighter blue
for our arrival.

The villa was small and square, standing in its tiny garden with an air of pink-faced
determination. Its shutters had been faded by the sun to a delicate creamy-green,
cracked and bubbled in places. The garden, surrounded by tall fuschia hedges, had the
flower beds worked in complicated geometrical patterns, marked with smooth white
stones. The white cobbled paths, scarcely as wide as a rake’s head, wound laboriously
round beds hardly larger than a big straw hat, beds in the shape of stars, half-moons,
triangles, and circles all overgrown with a shaggy tangle of flowers run wild. Roses
dropped petals that seemed as big and smooth as saucers, flame-red, moon-white,
glossy, and unwrinkled; marigolds like broods of shaggy suns stood watching their
parent’s progress through the sky. In the low growth the pansies pushed their velvety,
innocent faces through the leaves, and the violets drooped sorrowfully under their
heartshaped leaves. The bougainvillaea that sprawled luxuriously over the tiny iron
balcony was hung, as though for a carnival, with its lantern-shaped magenta flowers. In
the darkness of the fuschia-hedge a thousand ballerina-like blooms quivered
expectantly. The warm air was thick with the scent of a hundred dying flowers, and full
of the gentle, soothing whisper and murmur of insects.
Gerald Durrell

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48

Writing
Similes
A simile is a figure of speech in which two things that are not obviously like
each other are compared to make a description more vivid. A simile will often
begin with a phrase introduced by like or as.
Here are some examples of similes taken from the passages on pages
47–48:
1 the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down,
like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness
2 a small strawberry-pink villa, like some exotic fruit lying in the
greenery
3 the cypress-trees undulated gently in the breeze, as if they were
busily painting the sky
4 roses dropped petals that seemed as big and smooth as saucers
5 marigolds like broods of shaggy suns
6 a thousand ballerina-like blooms quivered expectantly.
You’ll notice that each of these similes (identified in bold) makes you think of
the object it describes in an original way, bringing the object more clearly into
your mind.
For example, the bright orange colour of the marigolds in number 5 and the
shape of their petals are emphasised by the comparison with a ‘shaggy sun’;
and the comparison with large saucers in number 4 focuses on the size and
perfection of the rose petals. In number 1 Dickens achieves many effects with
his comparison of the movement of the steam-engine’s piston with the
movement of ‘an elephant in a state of melancholy madness’: he emphasises
the unnatural and overwhelming size of the machines; he hints at the
depressing effects they have on the lives of the workers; and he suggests the
dangerous and potentially uncontrollable power and strength contained within
them.

Metaphors
Metaphors are like concentrated similes. In a metaphor two dissimilar things are
compared but rather than saying one is like the other, a metaphor goes a stage
further and makes one thing become another.
For example, in the Hard Times passage on page 47, Dickens writes about
‘tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves
for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled’. Here he is comparing the way
smoke from factory chimneys appears in the sky to huge snakes floating in the
air and coiling above the ground. However, rather than say ‘the smoke was
like

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snakes’ he gives the scene even more impact by making the smoke and the
snakes the same thing. He succeeds in adding to the hellish portrait of the
town. Metaphors are often used by poets who want to pack as much meaning
as they can into as few words as possible.

A word of warning
Similes can be very effective aids in your imaginative writing; however, if a
simile is used too often it tends to lose its effect. For example, the statement
‘The young child was as good as gold’ contains a simile (‘as good as gold’)
but the comparison is so common that very few people when reading it think
of the precious nature of gold and how this emphasises the value of the child’s
behaviour. Overused similes such as this are known as clichés and relying on
them too much is a sign of lazy writing. Try to avoid doing this at all costs.
Another point to bear in mind when using similes is to make sure that there
is always at least one point of comparison between the two objects in the
clause and that the simile used is drawing attention to that quality in the first
object.
Finally, remember that too many similes in the same paragraph can slow
down your writing so it’s usually better to use similes sparingly unless, as in
Gerald Durrell’s description of the strawberry-pink villa, you are trying
deliberately to create a sense of peace and calm.

Exercise: Similes
Some overused similes are listed below. Think of some more original
comparisons and then make up sentences in which they are used:
1 clean as a whistle
2 quiet as a mouse
3 cool as a cucumber
4 straight as an arrow
5 as easy as pie
6 like a bull in a china shop
7 run like the wind
8 hungry as a horse 9 flat as a pancake 10 as cold as ice.

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Techniques for descriptive writing

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Describing things effectively is an important way to directly involve your

readers – the more convincing your descriptions, the more likely you are to
draw your readers into your writing. It’s important that you make your
descriptions as clear as possible and you can do this by focusing on specific
details of the person or place that you are describing.
An effective and straightforward way of including such detail is by
concentrating on how what you are describing appeals to the different senses.
Ask yourself the following questions before you start to write to help you focus
on these details.
●● What does the person or place look like?
●● What sounds do I hear? (This could refer to a person’s voice and/or

movements or to the sounds that are most apparent in the place you are
writing about.)
●● What does it feel like? (For example, you could describe a character’s

handshake or the feeling of damp and cold in a winter scene.)

●● What does it taste
like? ●● What does it smell
like?
Obviously, you may not want to include references to all the senses in every
description – if you’re describing your favourite pet it’s unlikely that you will
want to describe its taste!
Most importantly, good descriptive writing depends on choosing exactly the
right word to communicate what is in your mind. It’s usually better to present
your description in a dynamic way through an effective choice of verbs and
adverbs, rather than slowing down your description with too many adjectives and
similes. Consider the following sentences.
●● The teacher came into the classroom and sat on his chair behind the

desk.
●● The teacher drifted into the classroom and slumped into his chair behind

the desk.
●● The teacher stormed into the classroom and positioned himself on the

chair behind his desk.

Each of these sentences conveys the same basic information (a teacher entered a
classroom and sat at his desk). However, the different choice of verbs
(underlined) in each sentence suggests a completely different account of events.
The first one is neutral in what it tells us; the other two sentences are much
more vivid and give a much clearer indication of the mood and character of the
teacher.

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Exercise: Developing a description

Here are some brief notes made by a writer as to what is to be included in a
description of a scene.
Night time; house; trees; countryside; people entering house; cars;
moonlight; noises in background; people talking; food being cooked; man
in shadow of tree.
●● Write two short paragraphs in which you develop these notes to
produce a detailed and vivid description.
●● Through choosing your words carefully, try to create a warm and
welcoming atmosphere in one of the paragraphs and then a sinister
and threatening atmosphere in your other paragraph.

Exercise: Character and place description

Write two longer paragraphs in which you:
1 describe an unusual and eccentric character. (It may help to base this
character on someone you know, but you can, of course, add or make up
details. It doesn’t have to be a human being – it could be a pet or another
animal)
2 describe the place in which this character lives. You should concentrate on
creating a description of a place which matches the eccentric nature of the
character you have described in the previous paragraph.

Speaking and listening

Activity
Imagine that you have been witness to a minor crime and that you are
helping the police with their enquiries by giving them a description of the
person or persons involved. Give your description to your group – you should
base it on someone you all know (although not necessarily a member of the
group) – and ask them to see if they can guess who you are describing.
Remember: you wouldn’t know the criminal’s name!

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Key skills

Punctuation
Commas
Commas are one of the most commonly used pieces of punctuation and are key
in allowing you to express yourself precisely. It’s important that you
understand when and where you should use them, and not just put them into
your writing at random. Commas have four main uses which should become
second nature to a confident writer.
1 To separate words or phrases in a list or series (except for the last two items
which are usually joined by ‘and’). For example: ‘Polly’s bag contained all her
favourite things; in it there were coloured pencils, felt tipped pens, a small
paintbox with brushes, drawing paper and a notebook for writing down ideas.’
2 To separate the name or title of a person being spoken to from the rest of the
sentence. For example: ‘Mummy, I’m feeling very tired and my back hurts,’
said Polly.
3 To mark off words or phrases that follow a noun and which are parallel in
meaning to it. This is known as being in apposition. For example: ‘Barbara,
Polly’s mother, met some of her friends in the park.’ The phrase ‘Polly’s
mother’ is in apposition to ‘Barbara’ as the two are the same person.
4 To separate words and phrases such as ‘however’, ‘therefore’, ‘by the way’,
‘nevertheless’, ‘moreover’, etc. that have been added into a sentence. For
example: ‘Polly was feeling tired; however, she knew that she had to finish the
long walk.’

Exercise: Commas
Copy out the following passage and then insert commas where necessary.
Mrs Lee the Headteacher of Springfield Primary School was proud of her
school. The students were hard-working punctual well-behaved and
interested in their lessons. The classrooms were well-equipped with
modern furniture new textbooks computers and interactive whiteboards.
Moreover when she walked round on her daily inspection she knew that
she would be welcomed into the classrooms by every teacher in the
school. Only that morning she had entered the classroom of Mr Miah the
Deputy Head. Straightaway all the children stood up and said ‘Good
morning Mrs Lee we are very pleased to see you.’ Mr Miah however
appeared to be a little confused by their greeting and Mrs Lee realised that
it must have been something they had done without any prompting from
him.

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