Table of Contents
Introduction
Writing is purposeful. Every essay must have a purpose. This purpose is decided by both your objective as a writer and the topic of the essay. In other words, we write because we have a message to communicate to the reader. We either want to inform, explain, narrate, persuade, or describe something:
This page focuses on the purpose of descriptive writing. We will first define what descriptive writing means. Then, we will identify its purpose and characteristics.
Let us start by providing a quick overview of the purpose of descriptive essays:
The purpose of a descriptive essay is mainly to describe a person, an object, a place, or anything that can be communicated through the five senses.
Before going into more detail about the purpose of descriptive writing, let us first define what a descriptive essay is.
What is a descriptive essay?
A descriptive essay is a genre of writing whose purpose (or mode) is to describe a person, a place, an experience, or a thing.
Two essential concepts are highlighted in this definition: genre and mode. These concepts have been long used interchangeably to mean the same thing. They have, however, distinct meanings.
What does a genre of writing mean?
A genre is a category of writing that has distinctive features. It is a sort of classification of text in terms of content, form, or style.
Genres are important because they facilitate communication and fulfill the readers’ expectations.
If you want to write a wedding invitation card, you will probably look for templates on the internet to get inspired. You will have to include specific elements such as the names of the hosts, the couple’s names, the date and time of the ceremony, and the ceremony and reception location.
Similarly, if you decide to write a business letter, you will certainly proceed differently from writing a personal or love letter since they have different layouts and are written using distinct styles.
Here are examples of genres:
- Essays.
- Biographies.
- Short stories.
- Novels.
- Plays.
- Poems.
- Reports.
- Emails.
- Letters.
Here is another way of putting it. You can think of a genre as a writing category. Typically, librarians organize/categorize their shelves according to different genres: history books, biographies, science books, reports, drama, essays, etc.
Now let us agree that, according to the above definition, an essay is a genre of writing.
What does the mode of writing mean?
The mode refers to the purpose of writing. According to the writer’s intentions, texts can fulfill principally four different purposes:
- To describe as in descriptive essays.
- To narrate as in narrative essays.
- To argue or convince as in argumentative essays.
- To explain or inform as in expository writing.
It is hard to write exclusively in only one mode. The four purposes may overlap in one piece of writing. However, one mode can be prioritized over the others. In descriptive essays, the emphasis is on describing. The task of the writer is mainly to describe a place, an experience, an object, or anything else that may be described using the five senses.
What is the purpose of descriptive writing
Now, let us rewrite and expand our definition of descriptive essays mentioned above.
A descriptive essay refers to a category or a genre of writing whose mode is to describe a place, a person, an experience, a situation, or anything that writers can depict using their five senses.
It is important to note that, in a descriptive essay, the writer is not limited to describing a person or a place. The range of possibilities is unlimited.
Descriptive writing offers writers a lot of creative freedom. They may have recourse to descriptive and figurative language (e.g., similes and metaphors) to create a rich atmosphere, a discernible ambiance, and detectable environments, characters, and emotions. The aim is to draw a vibrant and touching image in the reader’s mind.
Here is an example of a description by Charles Dickens in David Copperfield
“I came into the valley, as the evening sun was shining on the remote heights of snow, that closed it in, like eternal clouds. The bases of the mountains forming the gorge in which the little village lay, were richly green; and high above this gentler vegetation, grew forests of dark fir, cleaving the wintry snow-drift, wedge-like, and stemming the avalanche. Above these, were range upon range of craggy steeps, grey rock, bright ice, and smooth verdure-specks of pasture, all gradually blending with the crowning snow. Dotted here and there on the mountain’s-side, each tiny dot a home, were lonely wooden cottages, so dwarfed by the towering heights that they appeared too small for toys…” – David Copperfield
From “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens
Subjective and objective descriptive writing
Descriptions can be objective or subjective:
Objective descriptions
Facts are the primary focus of an objective essay, with no concern for the writer’s feelings. The writer is very much like a camera that is recording the subject; this camera has no passion or feelings towards what it is recording.
Here is an example of an objective description:
The rectangular kitchen table had a length of 79 inches (about 200 cm) and a width of 35 inches (about 200 cm.) Its top was covered with a white and brown dotted tablecloth. Six white pâinted wooden chairs were placed around the table. On the table, there was a vase with red flowers and candles burning to add light to the room.
Subjective descriptions
Writing a subjective description, on the other hand, takes into consideration both the subject being described and the writer’s internal personal reactions to it.
Here is an example of a subjective description:
At home, our lives converged around the invitingly rectangular-shaped kitchen table. It was the magnet that attracted our entire family together. It was big enough for us the children to play and eat on it. Its colossal presence in the middle of the kitchen warmly invited us to eat, laugh, and chat at the same time.
Characteristics of descriptive writing
Descriptive writing focuses on the description of sensory sensations, personal impressions, or views. They can take us to locations we wouldn’t otherwise be able to view, hear new sounds, taste different flavors, smell new fragrances, and feel new textures. Descriptive essays do this by using language that evokes our five senses.
The following are characteristics of descriptive essays.
1. Descriptive writing uses vivid sensory details
When appropriate, a good descriptive essay incorporates numerous vivid sensory elements that create a picture for the reader and evoke their senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.
When using descriptive sensory language, writing becomes livelier. To illustrate, let us consider some examples of the language that writers use to describe the different senses:
| Senses | Descriptive words |
|---|---|
| Touch | smooth, soft, delicate, arid, dry, dull, dusty, elastic, rubbery, feathery, fleshy, fragile, etc |
| Sound | blaring, blasting, boisterous, buzzing, chime, jingle, deafening, humming, hush, quiet, silent, noisy, whispering, squawking, booming, etc. |
| Sight | angular, colossal, flat, high, distinct, gloomy, dazzling, bright, glowing, luminous, shining, foggy, misty, hazy, gigantic, massive, immense, gigantic, etc. |
| Taste | acidic, sour, bitter, bland, insipid, flavorless, tasteless, buttery, crisp, fatty, sweet, sugary, spicy, salty, rotten, smoky, etc. |
| Smell | acrid, aromatic, briny, burnt, earthy, fishy, flowery, fragrant, fresh, gaseous, minty, moldy, odorous, musty, smelly, rancid, perfumed, pungent, piney, scented, stagnant, spoiled, etc. |
2. Descriptive writing uses language that describes emotions
In addition to language that evokes the senses, descriptive writing may also draw images of the writer’s emotions in reaction to the subject being described. Here is a short list of words to describe feelings:
| Feeling | Examples of Descriptive Language |
|---|---|
| Happiness | pleased, content, joyful, glad, delighted, satisfied, happy, elated, thrilled, overjoyed, euphoric, ecstatic, enthusiastic, jubilant, triumphant, exulting, crowing, etc. |
| Sadness | sad, unhappy, low, melancholic, gloomy, bleak, heartbreaking, miserable, crushed, depressed, anguished, desperate, frantic, hopeless, pathetic, etc. |
| Anger | angry, angry, mad, furious, enraged, irate, incensed, sore, exasperated, frustrated, etc. |
| Fear | scared, afraid, alarmed, frightened, terrified, fearful, fearsome, anxious, appalled, worried, concerned, apprehensive, intimidated, insecure, horrified, frantic hysteric, etc. |
| Confusion | confused, embarrassed, baffled, bewildered, unsettled, puzzled, disoriented, perplexed, confounded, befuddled, disorganized, etc. |
3. Descriptive writing uses figurative language
Good writers use figurative language such as personification, analogies, similes, and metaphors to paint images in the reader’s mind.
To illustrate how figurative language in descriptive writing creates a clear image, look at how Arthur Schopenhauer describes life using a simile:
“Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.”
You will agree that this is more vivid than simply saying that:
“Life is boring and painful.”
Here is another example of how figurative language can add quality to your description. This time it is a metaphor:
Liza’s tears were a river pouring down her cheeks.
This metaphor is a clever way of expressing how much Liza is crying.
4. Descriptive writing uses descriptive language
Some verbs elicit imagination and an emotional response more than others. Here are some examples:
- The verb eat is less strong than devour. The verb swallow may be used with a mouthful as it can be used with an insult (as in she was ready to swallow any insult.) If you eat an apple steadily and audibly, you munch it.
- The verb run has different connotations from race or sprint.
- You may simply sit to have a rest if you are tired but when you are depressed, you slump.
- You may simply walk to school. However, if you have nothing to do, you stroll around the city or wander through the narrow streets.
- “Talking verbs” tell so much without using any additional adjectives or adverbs. You may mutter a word under your breath, whisper if you don’t want people to hear what you want to say (for the sake of secrecy), chat with a person, gossip, or, sometimes, even shout to be heard.
Similarly, using adjectives or adverbs in descriptive writing can be tricky.
Depending on your intent, you may end up evoking different things using an adjective. The nuance between beautiful and sublime is the extent of the beauty you want to evoke. Is the beauty you want to describe inward or outward?
Some adjectives are more “telling” than others. Here is a list:
| Base Adjectives | Strong Adjectives |
|---|---|
| beautiful | gorgeous |
| ugly | awful |
| dirty | filthy |
| good | superb, great, fantastic |
| bad | terrible |
| happy | thrilled |
| angry | furious |
>>FOR A LONGER LIST CLICK HERE<<
Additionally, some adverbs, such as “very” or “really,” don’t contribute to your imagery and might be replaced. Compare “really” with “unbelievably” in:
- He walked really slowly.
- He walked unbelievably slowly.
Also, compare the following two sentences:
- The decision was enthusiastically welcomed by the participants.
- The decision was welcomed by the participants.
You may agree that the adverb enthusiastically adds more information and strength to the description.
As you can see, it is important to take into consideration your intent when searching for the right descriptive word in your writing. In addition to giving liveliness to the subject of your description, this also gives the opportunity to quickly provide more details to your audience.
Finally, and to illustrate how the literary masters use descriptions to blend magic with realism, this is an excerpt from the opening of the first chapter of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel: One Hundred Years of Solitude:
“MANY YEARS LATER as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. At that time Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran a long a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs.”
– Gabriel Garcia Marquez – One Hundred Years of Solitude, p. 8.
Conclusion
Descriptive writing aims to describe a person, an object, a place, or anything that can be communicated through the five senses. Writers use descriptive and figurative language to convey a powerful depiction of the subject of description. These descriptions can be objectives, transmitting only factual information, or subjective, reflecting the writers’ emotional implication in their writing.
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