1. DESCRIPTION Four Helpful Tips to improving your descriptive power

2. “For me, good description usually consists of a few well-chosen details that will stand for everything else… In most cases, these details will be the first ones that come to mind. But I think you will find that, in most cases, your first visualized details will be the truest and best. You should remember …that it’s as easy to overdescribe as to underdescribe. Probably easier. -Stephen King, On Writing, page 175

3. Ask yourself, “How important to my story is this (person, place, object or action)?” – On your camping trip, do you remember the shifting campfire best, or the frothy rapids? – Is the Kwik Trip clerk your best friend, or were you just buying a candy bar? – Did you ride that bike throughout your whole childhood? Or on one fine day that you will never forget? – Did your dad run for his life, or go for a jog that morning? TIP: The more important the element, the more words you can afford to spend describing it. DESCRIPTION TIP #1: CHOOSE YOUR SUBJECT

4. Take the time to put an image in your reader’s mind, but then make things move forward. – Once we know the top of the mountain is lost in clouds, someone should climb it. – When we know that Grandma’s first instinct was to slam the door in the salesman’s face, it’s time for him to make his pitch or for Granny to slam the door. – After you spy the dust-covered antique record player with the arm missing at the garage sale, buy it or negotiate the price with the little kid left in charge. TIP: Build an image and then let the story continue. DESCRIPTION TIP #2: KEEP THE STORY MOVING

5. Readers have five senses. Engage more than just one, where you can. – Was the music so loud at the concert that it felt like the sound crumble the walls to dust? – Did the air freshener in the living room only thinly cover the smell of the eleven cats that inhabited it? – How smooth did the hood of your first car feel to your fingertips? – Were the Brussel sprouts your aunt forced you to eat unexpectedly buttery and fresh, or squishy and slimy? TIP: Your reader should not just be able to see through your character’s eyes, but also hear with her ears and smell with her nose. DESCRIPTION TIP #3: ENGAGE THE SENSES

6. We know that the sun is bright, concrete is hard, and little brothers are often annoying. Make these things personal and your reader feel them in a new way. Yours. – Your first coffee caffeine rush perhaps felt as though someone had hit the fast-forward button on your brain. – Your uncle’s mustache hid his mouth so well, he never seemed to smile; you had to look at his eyes to gauge his mood. – The air in the cave was wet with mold and seemed to slither from your nostrils when you exhaled. TIP: The way you describe the significant elements of your story should be new to the reader, not recycled cliché. DESCRIPTION TIP #4: HOW BIG WAS IT?