Sentence 1: Declare the thing you will be describing.

Be explicit: "It was the ugliest

house in Defiance, Iowa."
Sentence 2: Exaggerate and add a simile/metaphor: "The wood siding was bleached and
withered, and the upstairs windows gaped like screaming mouths."
Sentence 3: Give it context, as in earth, air, water, sky: "It was raining the day I pulled
into the driveway, and a plague of frogs sat on the concrete porch, croaking and
copulating in their amphibious way."
Sentence 4: Stroke the five sensestouch, taste, smell, hearing, sightas much as
possible. "An odor of mildew and old gym socks met me at the rickety screen door,
which creaked and rattled as I opened it, and standing on tiptoes, through a small, high
window I peered into a gloomy cavern of shadows and clutter."
Sentence 5: Insert a character into the scene, and have him/her doing WHAT THEY
SHOULD NOT BE DOING: "The door was locked, so I picked up a rock and, muffling the
sound with a towel found in my backseat, broke a front window, and climbed into the
living room."

The endless bricks encompassing solitary confinement relentlessly oozed a puce liquid with the
consistency of store-bought jam. On a bad day, the walls seemed to be adamantly closing in,
minute-by-minute, like the narrowing of a rabbit hole into hopelessness. Devouring the last
breath of what he considered to be fresh air, the guard began his descent into the abyss to be
greeted by the inevitable stench of sweat and despair, as well as the familiar white noise of
prisoners muttering to no one in particular. Bypassing the other cages without a sparing glance,
the guard approached the last cell on the left with the trigger of the wardens missing gun pressed
halfway to death.

was greeted with the tangible stench of sweat and despair as well as the familiar static of
prisoners muttering forever amplified with each step, descending into the abyss.
Something within the air had the guards on edge on this supposed humdrum Tuesday in solitary
confinement. The rusted iron shackles bit into the hands of the prisoner like 1,000 tiny knife jabs.