10 Great Descriptive Writing Exercises & Activities

Descriptive writing is the equivalent of drawing with words instead of lines and colors. You need to create vivid pictures, using only your words and memory or imagination. Your goal is to make your readers see, hear, taste, smell, and feel what you want to say.

How can you start your descriptive writing practice?

Check out this set of recommendations prepared by our team. These descriptive writing exercises can become your personal recipe for a super-effective workout.

🧙 How to Practice Descriptive Writing?

Let’s start our exercise program with gentle stretching exercises for descriptive writing. They will help you unlock your imagination and write the first strokes of your descriptive essay.

1. Choose a place, object, person, or event to focus your descriptive paper on. Choose something original and unique, but something you know well. For instance, you might have difficulties describing the view from the window of a plane if you have never traveled by air. However, you will quickly outline your way home from school because you see this road every day.
2. Close your eyes and imagine that you look at the chosen object from different sides. Walk around it and pay attention to the tiniest details. Concentrate on the reactions of your five senses. See it, hear it, touch it, smell it, and taste it.
3. Identify your primary impression from the object you are going to describe. Try to unite all the sensory details you provide through one main idea. Express it in a thesis statement. For instance, you might describe a house as old but comfortable and search for specific details to support this position.
4. Make a plan for your descriptive paper. Don’t be afraid to separate ideas and fit them into different sections. Try to use some logic for this. For instance, you could discuss the house’s interior in the first paragraph and the second one.
5. Try to find the best suitable words to describe each detail. To draw a colorful picture for your reader, you may have to spend plenty of time on this stage. Use a dictionary or thesaurus in case you’re lost how to fill your sentence with descriptive words.

Keep in mind:

You don’t have to convince anyone—it’s not persuasive writing. Vivid expressions and clear descriptions are enough for a successful paper.

✨ How to Improve Descriptive Writing?

Now, as you have already warmed up your imagination, it is time for harder, strengthening exercises. They can help you polish your papers, making them more and more descriptive.

6. Add similes and metaphors. In creative writing, they can help to express your ideas. Now, as you have already stretched your imagination, you won’t have difficulties with drawing unexpected parallels to create fresh metaphors.
7. Look at your outline and start writing. Come up with an engaging sentence starter and continue, relying on your plan. If a writer’s block suddenly strikes you at this stage (though it is nearly impossible after all the previous exercises), you can try free-writing. It’s writing for a fixed time without paying much attention to grammar, punctuation, or even what ideas you write down.
8. Delete unnecessary words and phrases. After you complete your first draft, look through it, and remove all superfluous adjectives and adverbs. You see, it is imperative to strike the golden balance and include just enough details in this type of academic essay. Too much detail can be confusing and even annoying for readers.
9. Remove all clichés. Look for too general or too common phrases in your papers and replace them with better substitutes. For example, everyone would write about a tanned person that they are brown as a berry. Avoid making this mistake. Instead, you might compose that someone was suntanned, like a grilled chicken. It will help readers imagine what the person looked like and will make them smile.
10. Proofread and polish your paper. Improve its logical structure, especially if you have followed the previous advice and tried free-writing. Check your grammar and the vocabulary that you used in your text.

Finally, give a sigh of relief. Remember that breathing exercises are essential, as well.

Try these ten exercises, which can become your super-effective workout every time you are assigned descriptive writing. And thanks for reading the article! Share the page with those who need to improve their writing skills too.

Learn more on this topic:

• College Essay Writing 101—the Comprehensive Guide
• How to Write a Creative Essay: Tips, Topics, and Techniques
• Unique Essay Topics for College Students
• Terrific Essay Tools for Fast and Simple Writing
• How to Use the Right Gender-Neutral Pronouns
• How to Write an Outline That Will Earn an A+ Grade

References

1. In-Class Writing Exercises: The Writing Center, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2. Descriptive Essays: Purdue Online Writing Lab, College of Liberal Arts, Purdue University
3. Composition Patterns, Narrative and Descriptive: the Guide to Grammar and Writing, the Capital Community College Foundation