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Descriptive Text Examples

Descriptive writing aims to create vivid, concrete, and evocative imagery that allows readers to experience events, places, or emotions as if they were present. Effective descriptive writing uses specific details and relatable language to engage the reader's imagination while maintaining plausibility. The document provides examples from literature and songs to illustrate the power of descriptive text.

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13 views4 pages

Descriptive Text Examples

Descriptive writing aims to create vivid, concrete, and evocative imagery that allows readers to experience events, places, or emotions as if they were present. Effective descriptive writing uses specific details and relatable language to engage the reader's imagination while maintaining plausibility. The document provides examples from literature and songs to illustrate the power of descriptive text.

Uploaded by

adetona19gold
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Descriptive Text Examples

In descriptive writing, the author does not just tell the reader what was seen,
felt, tested, smelled, or heard. Rather, the author describes something from
their own experience and, through careful choice of words and phrasing,
makes it seem real. Descriptive writing is vivid, colorful, and detailed.
Good Descriptive Writing
Good descriptive writing creates an impression in the reader's mind of an
event, a place, a person, or a thing. The writing will be such that it will set a
mood or describe something in such detail that if the reader saw it, they would
recognize it.
To be good, descriptive writing has to be concrete, evocative and plausible.
 To be concrete, descriptive writing has to offer specifics the reader can envision.
Rather than “Her eyes were the color of blue rocks” (Light blue? Dark blue? Marble?
Slate?), try instead, “Her eyes sparkled like sapphires in the dark.”
 To be evocative, descriptive writing has to unite the concrete image with phrasing
that evokes the impression the writer wants the reader to have. Consider “her eyes
shone like sapphires, warming my night” versus “the woman’s eyes had a light like
sapphires, bright and hard.” Each phrase uses the same concrete image, then
employs evocative language to create different impressions.
 To be plausible, the descriptive writer has to constrain the concrete, evocative image
to suit the reader’s knowledge and attention span. “Her eyes were brighter than the
sapphires in the armrests of the Tipu Sultan’s golden throne, yet sharper than the
tulwars of his cruelest executioners” will have the reader checking their phone
halfway through. “Her eyes were sapphires, bright and hard” creates the same effect
in a fraction of the reading time. As always in the craft of writing: when in doubt, write
less.
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Examples of Descriptive Writing


The following sentences provide examples of the concreteness,
evocativeness and plausibility of good descriptive writing.
 Her last smile to me wasn’t a sunset. It was an eclipse, the last eclipse, noon dying
away to darkness where there would be no dawn.
 My Uber driver looked like a deflating airbag and sounded like talk radio on repeat.
 The old man was bent into a capital C, his head leaning so far forward that his beard
nearly touched his knobby knees.
 The painting was a field of flowers, blues and yellows atop deep green stems that
seemed to call the viewer in to play.
 My dog’s fur felt like silk against my skin and her black coloring shone, absorbing the
sunlight and reflecting it back like a pure, dark mirror.
 The sunset filled the sky with a deep red flame, setting the clouds ablaze.
 The waves rolled along the shore in a graceful, gentle rhythm, as if dancing with the
land.
 Winter hit like a welterweight that year, a jabbing cold you thought you could stand
until the wind rose up and dropped you to the canvas.
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Examples of Descriptive Text in
Literature
Because descriptive text is so powerful, many examples of it can be found in
famous literature and poetry.
The High Window
The mystery novelist Raymond Chandler was one of American literature’s
masters of descriptive language. This sentence from The High Window strikes
the perfect notes to embody its subject:
“She had pewter-colored hair set in a ruthless
permanent, a hard beak, and large moist eyes with the
sympathetic expression of wet stones.”
Life in the Iron Mills
Notice the vivid description of smoke in this excerpt from Rebecca Harding
Davis's Life in the Iron Mills:
"The idiosyncrasy of this town is smoke. It rolls sullenly
in slow folds from the great chimneys of the iron-
foundries, and settles down in black, slimy pools on the
muddy streets. Smoke on the wharves, smoke on the
dingy boats, on the yellow river--clinging in a coating of
greasy soot to the house-front, the two faded poplars,
the faces of the passers-by."
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Jamaica Inn
In this excerpt from Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier, notice the writer's
choice of adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. Granite. Mizzling. Du Maurier’s
choice of words allows the reader to almost feel the weather occurring on the
page.
"It was a cold grey day in late November. The weather
had changed overnight, when a backing wind brought a
granite sky and a mizzling rain with it, and although it
was now only a little after two o'clock in the afternoon
the pallor of a winter evening seemed to have closed
upon the hills, cloaking them in mist."
The Eagle
In Alfred Tennyson's "The Eagle," he conveys power and majesty in just a few
lines:
"He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls."
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Descriptive Text in Songs
Descriptive text examples can also be found in many songs, since songs are
meant to capture your emotions and to invoke a feeling.
Through the Strings of Infinity
Some of the most vivid and effective descriptive writing in music can be found
in rap. The evocation of alienation and the need to create in “Through the
Strings of Infinity” by Canibus is truly poetic.
“I was born in an empty sea, My tears created oceans
Producing tsunami waves with emotions
Patrolling the open seas of an unknown galaxy
I was floating in front of who I am physically
Spiritually paralyzing mind body and soul
It gives me energy when I’m lyrically exercising
I gotta spit ‘til the story is told in a dream by celestial
bodies
Follow me baby”
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Windowpane
The heavy metal band Opeth uses vivid descriptive writing to evoke loneliness
in their song “Windowpane.”
“Blank face in the windowpane
Made clear in seconds of light
Disappears and returns again
Counting hours, searching the night”
Blank Space
In her hit song “Blank Space,” Taylor Swift uses concrete, evocative
descriptions to evoke two very different impressions.
First:
“Cherry lips, crystal skies
I can show you incredible things
Stolen kisses, pretty lies
You’re the king, baby, I’m your queen”
Then:
“Screaming, crying, perfect storm
I can make all the tables turn
Rose gardens filled with thorns
Keep you second guessing”
All in the Details
Now that you have several different examples of descriptive text, you can try
your hand at writing a detailed, descriptive sentence, paragraph or short story
of your own. If you need help with powerful descriptions, try some figurative
language to help to paint a picture and evoke emotions.
If you need inspiration, explore the authors linked above, or check out our
quotes from poets like ”H.D.” Hilda Doolitle and Gerard Manley Hopkins,
novelists like Angela Carter, or songwriters like Tori Amos and Tom Waits.
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