How to write fiction that feels real - powerful descriptions

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 5

Powerful descriptions 

www.grammar-monster.com

Short Story

 Close your eyes and picture someone named Chris.

What if I tell you that Chris is a three-year-old boy with glasses. 

Does your mental picture change?

What if I tell you: 

Chris is a three-year-old boy with curly blond hair and glasses. He is large for his age and chubby. Did the picture just change again?

Why are powerful descriptions useful?

Powerful descriptions

• The more specific information you give the reader, the closer the reader's mental picture will be to the one you intended.
• Being specific gives you control over the reader's imagination. 
• It also makes the reader's experience more enjoyable.
• Readers want guidance. 
• If they'd just wanted to roam freely in their imagination, then they wouldn't have bothered to pick up your story. 

HOW?

Adjectives and adverbs are one way to make a scene more specific, but they are not the only way. 

You want to use, not abuse them. 

She threw her books angrily onto the reddish brown tile floor, then went to the rectangular window, and pressed her face against the cool, smooth glass, looking pensively out at the traditional corrugated red rooftops of the Southern Spanish town.

What did you think of this fragment? Did the author use or abuse of adjectives and adverbs?

1. use
2. abuse

Powerful descriptions

• But there's no need to depend so much on adjectives and adverbs to sharpen a picture.

•  By choosing more specific nouns and verbs, you can express more detail using the same number of words.

threw angrily

looking pensively

very slow

secretly listened

ran quickly

to eat with pleasure

hurled

gazing

sluggish

eavesdropped

overheard

listless

sprinted

dashed

to munch

flung

Powerful words: 

threw angrily: hurled, flung

looking pensively: gazing

very slow: sluggish, listless

secretly listened: eavesdropped, overheard

ran quickly: dashed, sprinted

to eat with pleasure: to munch

Be careful! 

Resist the urge to consult a dictionary for the most exotic verb you can find! 

Use a dictionary to find that normal word that carries power but refuses to come to mind.

01:06

An implied comparison is a..

1. onomatopoeia
2. metaphor
3. prediction
4. alliteration

02:28

If you want the reader to be immersed in you story, you need to play with:

1. the senses
2. the sense of motion
3. complex associations.
4. visual effects

00:28

Why do you read fiction?

to be entertained

to laugh

to be scared

to think

to find out who done it

to feel

to travel to strange new planets

to be absorbed and forget where you are

Now it's your turn: 

Choose a prompt and write 100-150 words. 

Try to use today's tips!

• Fear: What scares you a little? What do you feel when scared? How do you react?
• Closed Doors: What’s behind the door? Why is it closed?
• Write about being caught doing something embarrassing.