Is Your Description Too Much or Not Enough
- hbkiser
- Mar 17
- 2 min read
If you are among those who struggle with description, try this.
Settle into a comfortable spot, whether that's at your desk, in a coffee shop, or on a park bench. The where doesn't matter; the comfort factor does.
Choose a something close enough to see clearly, one that isn't going to relocate itself for 30 minutes: a caveat that excludes birds on a wire or a patron at the next table. It could be a particular brick in the wall, a plant, a curtain, the desk, a napkin holder...the something is up to you (other than that it isn't self-propelled. A fish in a tank is okay. You get the point.)
Set a 30 minute timer (or note the time on a wall clock). Yes, 30 minutes.
For the full half hour, painstakingly and specifically describe your something. Bullet points or a simple list are both fine if you like.
The aim is to be so clear, precise, and detailed that you could hand your written description to someone else, and they would be able to pick your something out from among a large group of similar somethings.
This description activity is straightforward, but the process is more surprising and generative than it at first appears. You'll run out of descriptors at a certain point, exhaust the first rush of sensory detail, at which point you have to get creative:
How else can you describe your something?
Are there metaphors that might clarify its appearance, its feel?
What language might evoke a clear mood or tone? (After spending this much time with your something, you'll begin to feel an emotion about it.)
Your goal is not necessarily to use this description in your writing. Instead, the goal is to force yourself to push past the commonplace and the obvious, to arrive at new ways to describe. That technique and skill will carry over.
