After 25 minutes of quiet reading, we practiced our creative writing with the lesson below
Prompt: She walked along the river
and was thinking about her old boyfriend.
This sentence tells something but is not very descriptive. To add description to your writing consider the following:
Setting (time and place). Describe the surroundings.
Description (more than just sight but also touch,
smell, feel, sound).
Avoid intensifiers (avoid the words very, really,
seriously, totally, completely, extremely, super, über, etc…)
Details (little details increase realism)
Figures of Speech (use a metaphor or simile or
personification or onomatopoeia or rhetorical question.
Stream of Consciousness (reach into the person’s mind)
Doris ambled almost without purpose along the cracked,
asphalt path that snaked its way and followed the looping path of BlueJay
Creek. Doris! Why had her parents named her that?
It was the name you’d give to a $500 car or the name of your friend’s
off-putting aunt– it wasn’t the name you’d give your newborn child in 1997.
The wet smell of fresh cut cedar filled the air as Doris continued
on along, walking aimlessly like the millions of brown and yellow leaves
falling all around her. She reached out
and caught one of the bright yellow ones, a Cottonwood leaf, and crushed it
into sand, into nothing. In that same
way, she thought to herself, she would crush Devyn Reynolds and his
barrel-chested arrogance.
Now it’s your turn. Choose one and expand into a 150 piece of descriptive writing. Remember to consider setting, description, avoid intensifiers, include small details, use figures of speech, and try to reach into the character's mind.
1. He was holding the parking
ticket in his hand wondering what to do.
2. Thunder and lightning
began as they walked through the amusement park.
3. She took one look at the
paper bag and wondered what was inside.
4. It was very dark when the
car drove slowly past us.
