The Writing Company · with the Mayor

Write to Describe

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Write to Describe

When your purpose is to describe, you put the reader in the scene. Hold your path, and let your verbs do real work.

Every description hands your reader a place to stand. Here is what a good one carries now.

A place the reader can enter

Your scene, named in one sentence. The reader should know where they are standing before anything else happens.
One path through it

Front to back, top to bottom, or near to far. Pick one path and hold it, start to finish.
Three senses

Sight is only the first. Give the reader something to hear and something to smell or touch.
Verbs that work

Rain drums. Smell drifts. Drops find your neck. A strong verb paints more than a stack of describing words.
A final detail that lands

End where your path ends, on the one detail you want the reader to keep.

Spend your tools

The craft moves you already know still do the work, pointed at a description.

Jake · Show, do not tell

Could we be more specific? There is a gray version, "we were disappointed," and a painted version, the drops darkening the roof while we went quiet. Paint it, and the reader feels the disappointment without the word.

We were disappointed when it rained. We watched the first drops darken the blanket roof, and we went quiet.

Nelson · Specific nouns

A noun names a person, a place, a thing, or an idea. "Cousin" is a common noun; "Maya" is her proper name, and it earns a capital M. "Tree" is common; "the old oak" is precise. Name the exact thing, and use the real name when you have one.

My cousin and I built it near the tree. Maya and I built our fort under the old oak.

Vinny · Strong verbs

Two jobs here. Pick the precise verb: not "put up" but "raised." And keep your tenses in step. If the story already happened, "comes" should be "came." One slip in tense trips the reader.

We put up the fort, and then rain comes. We raised the fort, and then the rain came.

Connie · Compound sentences for rhythm

A short sentence lands hard. A compound one, two thoughts joined with a comma and a conjunction, gives the reader room to breathe. Let them take turns, and your writing finds a rhythm.

We built the walls and we built the roof and then it rained. We built the walls. We built the roof, and then the rain came.

The Describe Plan

Same three moves as always, new trip. When your purpose is to describe, the Plan it move is the Path.

The Mayor's Power Plan

Pick it. Choose the place worth seeing, and the reader you are putting there.
Plan it. Pick your path before you go.
Pour it on. Write, and keep pouring: three senses, and verbs that earn their spot.

The Path

Pick one way through, and the reader will follow you anywhere.

Name the place: your scene, in one sentence.
Pick one path: front to back, top to bottom, or near to far.
Three senses: what does the reader see, hear, and smell or touch?
Verbs that work: which verb carries each sentence?
Land the last detail: end on the one thing the reader should keep.

Watch the Mayor plan it

Watch me run the plan on a place from that fort afternoon: Grandma's backyard in the rain, seen from under the blanket.

Pick it. Grandma's backyard, mid-rain, from inside the fort. My reader stayed dry at home. My path runs near to far, from the blanket over our heads to the porch across the yard.

Plan it.

The place Grandma's backyard in the rain, seen from inside the fort.
One path Near to far. The blanket above us, then the rocks at the corners, then the yard, then the porch.
Three senses Gray light seeps through the weave above us. Rain drums on the wool. The smell of wet grass drifts in.
Verbs that work Seeps. Drums. Drifts. Each one carries its sentence.
The last detail Across the yard, the porch light glows through the rain.

Pour it on. When I write it, I hold my path: blanket, rocks, yard, porch. Three senses, not one. And my verbs do the lifting. Rain drums. Smell drifts. Drops find. A scene with working verbs moves, even when nothing in it is going anywhere.

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