On the surface of it, a descriptive essay looks like a piece of cake to write. After all, there’s no research involved, and there are no citations to stress over. But once you get deeper into the assignment, you may find yourself scrambling for words, not knowing what else you can possibly say about the topic.

The following tips will not only help you add depth, but life, to your descriptive essay.

TIP #1: CONVERT LISTS OF DETAIL

With a heavy focus often placed on objects and places, the descriptive essay may lure you into the trap of just listing a bunch of details when describing something. “The room was large with white walls.”  “The room had an old, blue carpet.” And so on.

Those details work as placeholders in a rough draft, but a long string of them can feel boring to you, your peers, and your instructor. 

So, yes, start with these details, but don’t end with them. Convert them by focusing on what they mean, for a descriptive essay takes you past the surface level of color and shape and texture and smell to understand your relationship to the topic. 

To help you do that, ask yourself some questions. What about this detail is important? What would change if that detail changed? What impact does this detail have on other details or on you, the narrator? What story does it tell?

For instance, “The white walls were waiting for pictures to be hung to add color” means something different than “the white walls provided a backdrop against mismatched furniture.”  And although “the blue carpet was tattered in spots” is an improvement on “the room had an old, blue carpet,” you can go further with “the tattered spots on the blue carpet marked ten years of family traffic.”

In other words, this essay isn’t just about describing something; it’s about how you, and no one else, would see, hear, and feel that way about the topic. We want to see you in this essay.

TIP #2: BE PICKY WITH YOUR ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

There is a saying in writing circles that adjectives and adverbs are like spices; you want to go easy on them.

Just as it is easy to turn the descriptive essay into a list, it is easy to bury key parts under modifiers. When you pile on the adjectives, it takes longer for your reader to get to what is being described. The “image” you intended to convey can get lost in the lead-up. 

So how do you handle this?

First, get picky. Take, for example, “the tall, green, leafy tree by the house.” What is the strongest adjective you can use in that sentence? What is more important at that moment—that the tree is tall? Green? Leafy? If you are describing a tree in autumn, “green” may be important. If you are describing one that towers above the others, “tall” may be the most important. “Leafy” maybe useful if all the other trees sport bare branches. Focus on what you want that detail to say, and try to limit the adjectives to two or less.

Second, get precise. Besides creating information overload, too many adjectives and adverbs hint at other problems—weak verbs or imprecise modifiers or nouns. This can lead to piling on more to create a specific picture. You may need to take a look at the object being described. If it is a pine tree, that gives a different image than an oak. And how tall is tall? Is it as tall as the house? Taller? Pay attention to what those modifiers are saying and what the sentence looks like without them. Maybe there is a better noun or verb that can take the weight of the sentence.

Descriptive essays do need adjectives and adverbs, but they can lead to trying to mimic the speed your senses absorb details. Try panning over the “image” instead, taking it a bit at a time. That image that develops is contains more than colors and shapes; it is also fleshed out by the meaning embedded in what you pay attention to and for how long.

TIP# 3: POWER UP YOUR VERBS 

As you know by now, lists of details can weaken your paper. So can weak verbs, such as “is” and “was.” Those describe a state of being, and that just isn’t as exciting as action, movement. By powering up your verbs, you can power up engagement in your essay.

Do you remember in that first tip’s example how the wall was “waiting” to have pictures hung upon it? That adds some life to the description, but you don’t want to go overboard with wording that seems to make an object feel alive or aware. You can vary it by writing something as simple as “the whiteness of the wall bored me, making me want to cover it over with pictures when I had the money and time.”  

Now, for another example, think back to the tree in the second tip. While we can picture a ten-foot tall tree, you create a crisper image by saying “the tree towered over the house.” 

Stronger verbs make for stronger revisions in these examples. 

This tip may have you clicking on Word’s thesaurus. But you don’t need that tool to power up your verbs. You just need to be dedicated to removing as many “to be” verbs as possible, because strong verbs engage the reader. And they help reveal your unique perspective of the object or place under scrutiny.

CONCLUSION

Descriptive writing isn’t easy, though it seems like it should be. After all, we experience plenty of sights, sounds, smells, and more every day; how hard is it to pick a few to write about? The fact is we process thousands of sensory inputs in a day and quickly disregard what doesn’t matter. We would be overwhelmed if we stopped and focused on every detail. So when we try that for the length of an essay, the process can leave us tongue-tied. The above three tips will help you find the words to show your readers why the topic you picked is worth describing.