Successful descriptions offer readers more than just a list of sensory details or a catalog of characteristics. In a good description, the details work together to create a dominant effect or impression.

Sensory details appeal to one or more of the five senses — sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch — and help your readers experience the object, sensation, event, or person you are describing.

Sight. When you describe what something looks like, you help your reader create a mental picture of the subject. In the following excerpt, notice how Loren Eiseley uses visual detail — shape, color, action — and specific nouns and noun phrases to describe what he comes across in a field.

One day as I cut across the field which at that time extended on one side of our suburban shopping center, I found a giant slug feeding from a funnel of pink ice cream in an abandoned Dixie cup. I could see his eyes telescope and protrude in a kind of dim, uncertain ecstasy as his dark body bunched and elongated in the curve of the cup.

Loren Eiseley, “The Brown Wasps”

This description allows the reader to imagine the slug eating the ice cream in a way that a bare statement of the facts — “On my way to the mall, I saw a slug in a paper cup” — would not.

Sound. Sound can also be a powerful descriptive tool. Can you “hear” the engines in the following description?

They were one-cylinder and two-cylinder engines, and some were make-and-break and some were jump-spark, but they all made a sleepy sound across the lake. The one-lungers throbbed and fluttered, and the twin-cylinder ones purred and purred, and that was a quiet sound too.

E. B. White, “Once More to the Lake”

Smell. Smells are sometimes difficult to describe, partly because the English language does not have as many adjectives for smells as it does for sights and sounds. Smell can be an effective descriptive device, however, as shown here.

Driving through farm country at summer sunset provides a cavalcade of smells: manure, cut grass, honeysuckle, spearmint, wheat chaff, scallions, chicory, tar from the macadam road.

Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses

Notice how Diane Ackerman lists nouns that evoke distinct odors and leaves it to the reader to imagine how they smell.

Taste. Words that evoke the sense of taste can make descriptions lively. Consider this restaurant critic’s description of Vietnamese cuisine.

In addition to balancing the primary flavors — the sweet, sour, bitter, salty and peppery tastes whose sensations are, in the ancient Chinese system, directly related to physical and spiritual health — medicinal herbs were used in most dishes. … For instance, the orange-red annatto seed is used for its “cooling” effect as well as for the mildly tangy flavor it lends and the orange color it imparts.

Molly O’Neill, “Vietnam’s Cuisine: Echoes of Empires”

Touch. Annie Dillard’s descriptions of texture, temperature, and weight allow a reader not only to visualize but also to experience what it feels like to hold a Polyphemus moth cocoon:

We passed the cocoon around; it was heavy. As we held it in our hands, the creature within warmed and squirmed. We were delighted, and wrapped it tighter in our fists. The pupa began to jerk violently, in heart-stopping knocks. Who’s there? I can still feel those thumps, urgent through a muffling of spun silk and leaf, urgent through the swaddling of many years, against the curve of my palm.

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Sensory details are often best presented through active, vivid verbs. In fact, active verbs are often more effective than adverbs in creating striking and lasting impressions, as the following example demonstrates. (For more on using active verbs, see Chapter 10.)

Using varied sentences also contributes to the effective expression of sensory details. Be sure to use different types and patterns of sentences and to vary their lengths.

An effective description leaves the reader with a dominant impression — an overall attitude, mood, or feeling about the subject. The impression may be awe, inspiration, anger, or distaste, for example.

Let’s suppose that you are writing about an old storage box you found in your parents’ attic. The aspect of the box you want to emphasize (your slant, angle, or perspective) is memories of childhood. Given this slant, you might describe the box in several ways, each of which would convey a different dominant impression. The dominant impression may (or may not) be stated in a thesis statement. (For more on thesis statements, see Chapter 6.)

Notice that each example provides a different impression of the box’s contents and would require a different type of support. That is, only selected objects from within the box would be relevant to each impression. Note, too, that in all of these examples, the dominant impression is stated directly in a thesis statement rather than implied.

To write an effective description, select details carefully, including only those that contribute to the dominant impression you are trying to create. Notice that Dillard, in the paragraph above, does not clutter her description by describing the physical appearance of the cocoon. Instead, she focuses on its movement and how it feels in her hand.

As noted in Chapter 4, most words have two levels of meaning: denotative and connotative. The denotation of a word is its precise dictionary meaning. Often, however, feelings and attitudes — emotional colorings or shades of meaning — are also associated with a word. These are the word’s connotations. (For more on connotation versus denotation, see Chapter 4.)

As you write, be careful to select words with connotations that strengthen the dominant impression you are creating.

Comparing the person or object you are describing to something your readers are familiar with can help them visualize your subject. Several types of comparisons are used in descriptive writing: similes, metaphors, personification, and analogies.

For more on simile, metaphor, personification, and analogy, see Chapter 4.

Effective descriptions must follow a clear method of organization. Three common methods of organization used in descriptive writing are spatial order, chronological order, and most-to-least or least-to-most order. (For more on methods of organization, see Chapter 7.)

In writing a description using spatial order, you can use either a fixed or a moving vantage point. With a fixed vantage point, you describe what you see from a particular position. With a moving vantage point, you describe your subject from different positions. A fixed vantage point is like a stationary camera trained on a subject from one direction. A moving vantage point is like a handheld camera that captures the subject from many directions.

The following readings demonstrate the techniques discussed above for writing effective descriptive essays. The first reading is annotated to point out how Rachel Maizes uses these techniques to make the depiction of her dog, Chance, come alive. As you read the second essay, try to identify for yourself how the writer uses the techniques of descriptive writing to help readers imagine her prized bicycle.