PICTURE
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Sensory Details
• Adding sensory details helps enrich
writing and enables your reader to
thoroughly experience the scene you
are trying to describe.
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What is the difference?
I was really scared to ride the roller coaster. I felt a little
sick, but excited at the same time. When the bar clicked
into place, I held on tight. When the ride started, I hoped for
the best.
As I slid into the red plastic seat of the roller coaster, my
mouth went dry and my hands felt clammy. The bar in front
of me clicked into place and I gripped it so hard my
knuckles turned white. I could taste the cotton candy I’d
eaten earlier at the back of my throat. When the car jolted
forward, my stomach dropped, I held my breath, and I told
myself I would survive.
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Showing, Not Telling
In the first paragraph, the writer is telling the
reader what is happening. In the second
paragraph, the writer is showing the reader, or
putting the reader in the story, allowing him
or her to experience what the writer experienced.
The writer accomplishes this through
concrete, or sensory, detail.
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Words like “scared” or “excited” tell an emotion, but don’t
show it. These are abstract descriptions, because there’s
nothing to see, hear, feel, taste or smell. In the second
example, the reader experiences “scared” when the writer
says, “my mouth went dry and my hands felt clammy.” The
reader understands that the writer “felt a little sick” when
the writer says, “I could taste the cotton candy I’d eaten
earlier in the back of my throat.” The reader feels the
anxiety when the writer says, “I gripped it so hard my
knuckles turned white.” This is showing, rather than telling.
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Now It’s Your Turn
• On the back of your notes page, write a
descriptive paragraph for one of the four
telling sentences below.
• Telling Sentences:
1. I was exhausted.
2. The puppy was a terror.
3. My friend was so mad.
4. The substitute teacher was strange.
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Examples
• Notice in the next two examples how each writer
has created a unique character and scene
based on the “telling” sentence.
• Once you have a showing paragraph, it’s OK to
add rich adjectives and strong verbs.
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Telling Sentence: The man is old.
• Showing paragraph:
– “The codger reaches out and caresses Halleck’s
cheek with one twisted finger. His lips spread open
like a wound, showing a few tombstone stumps
poking out of his gums. They are black and green. His
tongue squirms between them and then slides out to
lick his grinning, cracked lips.”
– Stephen King, Thinner
What vivid adjectives did the author use?
What strong verbs?
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Example 2
• “Limping along paths of crushed stone and tapping his
cane as he takes each step, he races across intricacies
of sunlight and shadow spread before him on the dark
garden floor like golden lace. Alessandro Guilani is tall
and unbent, and his buoyant white hair falls, floating
around his head like the white water in the curl of a
wave.”
– Mark Halprin, A Soldier of the Great War
What figurative language devices do you notice?
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Adjectives, strong verbs, & similes
Pretend you are writing about a time when you went scuba diving. Using the picture below, write as many
adjectives, strong verbs, and similes as you can to accurately and descriptively describe the scene. Let’s take
a few minutes.
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Cinema Ticket
• Here’s an incentive to use your
vocabulary words!
• If you use one of your vocabulary words in
NORMAL conversation with a teacher before
Thursday (and make it clear that you know
what the word means), have them sign your
ticket for a snack from Thursday’s concession
stand! You must write the sentence that you
said on the ticket.
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