Format: Typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 pt. font, 17-19 sentences, in

Format: Typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 pt. font, 17-19 sentences, indented, name, date, and original title
Assignment: Part of narrative writing is the ability to paint a picture with words so that your reader can feel as though he/she is experiencing what you experienced. In order to effectively do this, you must use strong action verbs and vivid adjectives. For this assignment, you will write a 17-19 sentence paragraph in which you describe a memorable event from your past. You must make your reader feel as though he/she is actually experiencing the event by using strong action verbs and vivid prose. Drawing your reader into this event will make it “come alive” for the reader and hold his/her attention.
In order to write effective descriiption, you will need to describe your experience as exactly as possible. You will need to rely on language is specific – tied to actual things – and concrete – tied to the senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Such language enables readers to behold with the mind’s eye – and to feel with the mind’s fingertips.
The first sentence below shows a writer’s first-draft attempt to describe something she saw. After editing, the second sentence is much more vivid.
Vague: Beautiful, scented wildflowers were in the field.
Concrete and Specific: Backlighted by the sun and smelling faintly sweet, an acre of tiny lavender flowers spread away from me.
When editing your descriiption, keep a sharp eye out for vague words such as delicious, handsome, loud, and short that force readers to create their own impression or, worse, leave them with no impression at all. Using details that call on readers’ sensory experiences, tell why delicious or why handsome, how loud or how short. When stuck for a word, imagine your subject and see it, hear it, touch it, smell it, or taste it.
Note that concrete and specific do not mean “complex”. Good descriiption does not demand high level vocabulary when more common equivalents are just as informative. The writer who uses rubiginous instead of rusty red actually says less because fewer readers will understand the less common word and all readers will sense the writer is showing off.