The Power of Descriptive Writing

Tell Your Story

          Our minds shift gears when filled with imagery: either we slow down and smell the flowers or we shift into a higher gear, and our minds become alive with the power and rush that only images and actions can initiate to such great effect—but either way we, as readers, are more alive, ready, and willing to move in a new direction. The writer who does not realize this runs the risk of becoming an erudite prude at best and a self-centered mouthpiece at worst because his or her words remain untethered to the real world of the reader who instinctively wants and needs to be anchored to a place that gives full breath and breadth to the senses. It is through engaging the senses that a writer engages the reader. To learn the art and craft of descriptive writing is to learn how to tell good story—and in the end, all writing is simply storytelling, good and bad.

“This is such bull!” I can almost hear the academic writers crying out in opposition. “We are empowered by ideas and the synthesis and explication of these ‘thought provoking’ nuances of a brilliant mind working towards a solution of a specific and fascinating thesis…” Yeah, they got me there—but only if they got me interested in the first place; only if the tree of my life is already leaning in the direction of that thesis, and only if my mind is ready and willing to plow through the muddy slough that seems to be the field of what is blithely and blindly called “essays.” For me at least to keep plowing through, I need to be reached not only an intellectual level but also on the real and palpable visceral levels that completes the fullness of my being human—the blood, flesh, and bones that keeps the intellect alive. Good, descriptive writing is the vital core that captures not just the mind, but the pumping heart and manifest soul  of the reader.

Even this—this paltry creation of mine—is being fed not simply by my mind, but by the sublimity of where I am: it is being fed by the first full moon of the summer splaying bits of light through a canopy of woodland forest on a cool New Hampshire night. The dull light of my screen is more than words for me as it attracts more than what is in only in my head; it also attracts a bevy of insects buzzing around or crawling across the hard glass of my screen. Yes, I have an audience already! perhaps the only audience this will have, yet it gives every word I eke out a greater meaning and purpose, and without that purpose for me how can there ever be a purpose for you. I learned and accepted long ago that no one intrinsically cares about me and what I write: they care about what my writing gives to them—how it feeds his or her heart, mind, soul, and being. If he or she receives only a glancing blow, I will count this effort a success on the scales of my life as a writer. And if you—the completely unknown you—are still here reading with some semblance of earnestness that this is time well-spent, then I will reap the unmitigated joy of my words echoing deeper into these dark woods, and I am not alone with this feral whirl of moths, mosquitoes and junebugs.

Good writing separates not only the wheat from the chaff, but also shows the whole process of the winnowing: the drying and grinding of the seeds into the rising flour that becomes the very bread of our lives. My plea is fairly simple: if you are a writer, do not live simply in the guppy thoughts swimming in your head; live in the fullness of your experiences, and cast a net that will strain your gear and haul in a greater catch—a catch that will feed a hungry audience day in and day out and be another testament to eternity. If you are a teacher, let your students write first about what they know best, for if the seed is not in their hands how can it be planted, tended and watered in a garden of joy. Too often our students trudge from the fields of our imposed labors with hands, heads and hearts deadened by defeat—proud warriors once, but no more.

Keep the passion alive. Keep the passion alive. Keep the passion alive. Let every essay, every writing prompt, and every scratch upon the page be a story well told. Teach how to tell good stories; teach how to use descriptive writing to perfect and enliven those stories, and share those stories, and curate those stories.

But let each writer tell his or her own story.

And you tell yours.