Descriptive Writing Techniques

Start with the techniques

For an overview, start with the notes titled Composition/Creative Writing. They introduce the elements of descriptive writing alongside those of a short story and a personal essay. You can use them to identify an aspect of description to explore in the mind maps.

Next, open DVDS. It organizes ideas under devices, vocabulary, design and senses. Its branches include similes, metaphors and personification, as well as word choices, sentence length and paragraphs. Another map on descriptive techniques brings together examples such as alliteration, hyperbole and onomatopoeia.

Explore descriptions of places

Describe a sinister street at night groups details by what someone might see, hear, smell, feel and taste. Look at how the map connects darkness, silence and cold with the setting. Then compare its sensory branches with Descriptive Writing, which includes details of a farm setting, such as animals, grass and soil.

For a different setting, Stormy Coastline offers possible vocabulary and examples of similes and personification. Descriptive Piece - Prison includes suggestions to use sensory details and a simile, and to leave the description on a cliffhanger. The maps offer different ways to plan details before writing.

Use the quiz with the maps

Concept 1 Practice Quiz asks about types of descriptive writing, including writing intended to inform. After looking at the maps, use the quiz to consider how descriptive writing can serve different purposes. Return to a map to see the kinds of choices a writer can make when building a description.

Place this topic in the unit

Descriptive Writing Techniques is a section of Narrative, Descriptive and Creative Writing in the Spanish language school subject. The notes connect description with short stories and personal essays, while the maps focus on planning details and choosing language. Choose a map to use as a starting point for your own description.