How to write fiction that feels real - powerful descriptions

Powerful descriptions 
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Slide 1: Slide
EngelsMiddelbare schoolvwoLeerjaar 5

This lesson contains 21 slides, with interactive quizzes, text slides and 1 video.

time-iconLesson duration is: 45 min

Items in this lesson

Powerful descriptions 

Slide 1 - Slide

Slide 2 - Link

Short Story

Slide 3 - Slide

 Close your eyes and picture someone named Chris.

Slide 4 - Slide

What if I tell you that Chris is a three-year-old boy with glasses. 
Does your mental picture change?

Slide 5 - Slide

What if I tell you: 
Chris is a three-year-old boy with curly blond hair and glasses. He is large for his age and chubby. Did the picture just change again?

Slide 6 - Slide

Why are powerful descriptions useful?

Slide 7 - Mind map

Powerful descriptions
  • The more specific information you give the reader, the closer the reader's mental picture will be to the one you intended.
  • Being specific gives you control over the reader's imagination. 
  • It also makes the reader's experience more enjoyable.
  • Readers want guidance. 
  • If they'd just wanted to roam freely in their imagination, then they wouldn't have bothered to pick up your story. 

Slide 8 - Slide

HOW?
Adjectives and adverbs are one way to make a scene more specific, but they are not the only way. 
You want to use, not abuse them. 

Slide 9 - Slide


She threw her books angrily onto the reddish brown tile floor, then went to the rectangular window, and pressed her face against the cool, smooth glass, looking pensively out at the traditional corrugated red rooftops of the Southern Spanish town.

Slide 10 - Slide

What did you think of this fragment? Did the author use or abuse of adjectives and adverbs?
A
use
B
abuse

Slide 11 - Quiz

Powerful descriptions

  • But there's no need to depend so much on adjectives and adverbs to sharpen a picture.

  •  By choosing more specific nouns and verbs, you can express more detail using the same number of words.

Slide 12 - Slide

threw angrily
looking pensively
very slow
secretly listened
ran quickly

to eat with pleasure

hurled
gazing
sluggish
eavesdropped
overheard
listless
sprinted
dashed
to munch
flung

Slide 13 - Drag question

Powerful words: 
threw angrily: hurled, flung
looking pensively: gazing
very slow: sluggish, listless
secretly listened: eavesdropped, overheard
ran quickly: dashed, sprinted
to eat with pleasure: to munch

Slide 14 - Slide

Be careful! 
Resist the urge to consult a dictionary for the most exotic verb you can find! 

Use a dictionary to find that normal word that carries power but refuses to come to mind.

Slide 15 - Slide

3

Slide 16 - Video

01:06
An implied comparison is a..
A
onomatopoeia
B
metaphor
C
prediction
D
alliteration

Slide 17 - Quiz

02:28
If you want the reader to be immersed in you story, you need to play with:
A
the senses
B
the sense of motion
C
complex associations.
D
visual effects

Slide 18 - Quiz

00:28
Why do you read fiction?
to be entertained
to laugh
to be scared
to think
to find out who done it
to feel
to travel to strange new planets
to be absorbed and forget where you are

Slide 19 - Poll

Now it's your turn: 
Choose a prompt and write 100-150 words. 
Try to use today's tips!
  • Fear: What scares you a little? What do you feel when scared? How do you react?
  • Closed Doors: What’s behind the door? Why is it closed?
  • Write about being caught doing something embarrassing.

Slide 20 - Slide


Slide 21 - Open question