Tips for Writing – How to Make

Your Sentences More Descriptive

The purpose of writing is to communicate information. This is true for
writing of all types, for fiction and nonfiction, for creative and technical, for
business and legal.

A work of fiction communicates information by telling a story, while an

email to an employee communicates information in a much more direct
way.

In either case, the author accomplishes the goal of information sharing by

using descriptive language to convey detail.

Here is a passage that isn’t very descriptive:

 Beth first met her spouse in California.

The sentence is fine insofar as it goes, but it isn’t very interesting. What
were they doing in California? How did they meet? Did they fall in love
head over heels, or did their relationship grow over time as they got to
know one another?

All of these details are interesting—and possibly important.

I will include a caveat, though. You don’t want your sentences to

be too descriptive, or they will be equally as boring, like this sentence:
 When Bethany first met Elijah at a rooftop cocktail party at
the Standard Hotel in downtown L.A., he was wearing
polished leather penny loafers with beige argyle socks, dark
blue jeans from GAP that looked brand new and a crisp,
white cotton dress shirt that he accentuated with a 1970s-era
stainless steel Tissot Chronograph watch that made him look
like an off-brand Bond villain from a film that had been
disowned by its director and credited to Alan Smithee.
Who needs all that detail? At some point, you probably thought to
yourself, stop telling me what Elijah is wearing; I don’t care anymore.
Good writing is about balance. It is possible to be too descriptive, and
your writing will suffer just as much as if you aren’t being descriptive
enough. With that cautionary tale in mind, here are a few tips for making
your writing more descriptive.
Verb choice. Selecting colorful verbs is one of the easiest ways to make
your writing more interesting. You don’t even have to add extra words;
your sentences need verbs anyway, so just choose good ones.
 Did someone walk across the room, or did
they stumble across the room (maybe in a drunken haze)?
 Did someone laugh at a funny joke, or did they giggle,
or chortle, or guffaw?
English is full of descriptive verbs, and they can make your writing more
colorful. Be careful, however, not to use verbs that are too uncommon or
strange, or you run the risk of losing description and creating distraction.

Eliminate adverbs. One of the oft-cited rules of poetry is that you should

never use adverbs. Stephen King once said, “I believe the road to hell is
paved with adverbs.”
The thinking is that adverbs modify verbs, but your verbs should be
strong enough by themselves that they don’t need to be modified. In other
words, to say eliminate adverbs is just another way to say use strong
verbs.
Consider this example,

 A deer ran across the road furiously, and I hit the brakes
immediately.
In this sentence, the adverbs are taking away one’s need to use
descriptive verbs. They act as sprinkles on an otherwise mundane
sentence.

Let’s try eliminating them.

 The deer sprang across the road. Smashing the brake pedal,
I swerved to avoid it.
The verb choice here puts more detail back into the sentence.

Adverbs also have the tendency to weaken writing by adding

unnecessary qualifiers, e.g., usually, generally, mostly, oftentimes, etc. In
many cases, these words are used to obscure writing, not make it clearer
or more descriptive.

use of adjectives. Where adverbs modify verbs, adjectives modify

nouns. This is probably the most direct way to make your writing more
descriptive, since adjectives exist for the express purpose of being
descriptive.
This is where many writers fall into the trap of being too descriptive,
though. The cautionary example sentence above contains 18 adjectives,
which is at least 14 too many.
Stick to one adjective per verb most of the time. Stick to a maximum of
five or six nouns per sentence, too—any longer than that and the
sentence should be split.

Analogies and Metaphors. Comparative language is incredibly powerful

in its ability to describe. By comparing one thing to another, you bring to
mind everything associated with that subject or idea that you’re
comparing—and these feelings can be powerful.
Analogies and metaphors are the standard-bearers of comparative
language. Analogies help clarify complex topics and make them relatable,
and metaphors can add a bit of elegance or flair to your writing.

Consider a famous metaphor from Picasso,

 “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”
The imagery that this evokes in the mind of the reader is deep—in some
sense literally. It brings to mind waves crashing over a shore and is much
more descriptive than it otherwise could be:

 Art makes life more interesting.

In some sense, this sentence says the same thing as Picasso’s quote, but
it’s obvious which is more descriptive and meaningful.

As with any bit of description, metaphors can be overused, and they

aren’t always helpful. In everyday business communication, it’s probably
better to eliminate unnecessary metaphors and other figurative language.