One effective way to improve your writing is to practise descriptive and narrative writing.

Description and narration

Description is an account of a person, place, thing or situation. That means, description is to give an account of something or someone as it is at a time. It is writing through space.

Narration is an account of an event or events that move through time. For example, something happened first and then occurred something else.

The liveliness of both descriptive and narrative writing depends largely on the ability to give details-especially how things look, sound, smell, seems or are felt.

For instance, if you are speaking about a person, think how his /her appearance is (size, shape, hair, eyes, face, hands, etc.) or how he /she speaks (loudly / softly /in whispering charm ...). One practical way to begin this practice is to think about people, places or situations that are familiar to you and write modelling on them

What language tools can be used to describe?

Using adjectives or figures like comparisons or identification with familiar objects or person are two most common ways of descriptive writing.

For instance, the sound of the laugh of a girl compared with steel plates falling on the marble floor. Here the reader hears/ feels the unfamiliar sound of her laughter with the help of the familiar sound of the plates falling.

Exercise:

Imagine that you are sitting in a park, waiting for a friend to come. There is a person sitting on the opposite bench. Write a descriptive paragraph of about 100 words (not more than 120) about the person

In your description, you should give an account of:

• The background(how does the place look like and what things are around)

• The appearance of the person

• What he/she was doing (reading/ looking around eagerly/ impatiently waiting..?)