Grammaropolis
The Writing Company · with the Mayor

Write to Describe

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Write to Describe

When your purpose is to describe, the things themselves do the acting. And once per scene, one of them gets to come alive.

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

  1. A place the reader can enter
    Your scene, named in one sentence. The reader should know where they're standing before anything else happens.
  2. One path, held
    Pick your order through the scene and hold it to the last line. A wobbling path breaks the spell.
  3. Things that act
    Nothing just sits there. "The tray line snakes past the register," never "there's a line." The things do the acting, and the reader watches them.
  4. A touch of personification
    Let one thing act like it's alive. A room can find its voice. Spend the touch once; once is enough.
  5. 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 portrait

Jake · Show, don't tell

Could we be more specific? Show the detail that matters, the empty caddy with its thirty flat pockets. But you may TELL the small connecting parts, like which week it is; not every sentence needs a full picture. Knowing when to tell is a craft too.

Lunch is different now that phones are banned, and the whole room feels changed. It's the first week of the phone ban. By the doors, the phone caddy hangs empty, all thirty pockets flat.

Nelson portrait

Nelson · Specific nouns

Listen up. A noun names a person, a place, a thing, or an idea, and ideas can be named precisely too. "A change" names nothing the reader can hear. "Conversation" names the change exactly. Pin the idea down.

A change fills the lunchroom at noon. Conversation fills the lunchroom at noon.

Vinny portrait

Vinny · Strong verbs

Fear not! A verb can hide the doer in the passive voice or put it on stage in the active voice. "The quiet is broken by laughter" leaves the laughter waiting at the back; "laughter breaks the quiet" puts it in charge. Reach for the active voice unless you have a reason not to.

The quiet is broken by laughter from the back table. Laughter from the back table breaks the quiet.

Connie portrait

Connie · Compound and complex sentences

Come on in! A short sentence lands hard. A longer one that opens with a word like "when," or joins two thoughts with a comma and a conjunction, carries more. Put a comma before the conjunction when it joins two complete thoughts; that's the rule. Mix the lengths, and your paragraph finds a shape.

The bell rings. Trays clatter. The line snakes past the register. When the bell rings, trays clatter, and the line snakes past the register.

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're putting there.
  • Plan it. Pick your path, and pick the one thing that gets to come alive.
  • Pour it on. Write, and keep pouring: more acting things, more senses, and one touch of life.

The Path

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

  1. Name the place: your scene, in one sentence.
  2. Pick one path, and hold it to the end.
  3. Let the things act: at every stop, something does something.
  4. Pick your one touch of personification, and where to spend it.
  5. 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 the phone-ban year: the lunchroom, the first loud week after the rule landed.

Pick it. The lunchroom at noon, the first week of the ban. My reader thinks a rule can't change a room. The room will show them otherwise.

Plan it.

  • The place The lunchroom, first week of the phone ban, at the loud end of noon.
  • One path Near to far. My table, then the tray line, then the far wall by the doors. Held to the end.
  • What acts Trays clatter. Laughter rolls from table to table. The tray line snakes past the register.
  • The one touch The room finds its voice again. That's my personification, and I spend it once.
  • The last detail By the doors, the phone caddy hangs empty, all thirty pockets flat.

Pour it on. When I write it, every thing acts. Trays clatter, the line snakes, laughter rolls. I spend my one touch of personification where it earns its keep: the room finds its voice again. And I stay out of the scene. The reader never sees me watching. They just stand in the noise.

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