Write It With Research
We strengthen our writing by using descriptive details with specificity and authentic topics. Thus, we enter the zone of building our research and descriptive skills.Observation skills are essential for every writer. Attentiveness leads to relatable writing.
Research assists observation gathering:
-Need to expand your topic with more details of interest?
-Lacking information for a particular project?
-Keep looking. Search books, magazines, articles and pose questions to a group of writers.
-Consistently qualify the sources you rely on.
Topical ideas can help guide your research and launch a story or essay:
1) Current affairs compared to times and seasons of human history.
a. Transportation, information technology, art history
2) Social issues to champion.
a. Children and music
b. Young and older exploring art through painting
3) Present day hero’s—caring for others
a. A four-year-old boy that saves his Mom by dialing 911 for help
b. First Responders
4) Unusual aspirations
a. A young girl dreams about auto racing and ultimately finds a way to do it
b. A hiker journeys the length of the Pacific Crest Trail
Have more Ideas? Please leave a comment.
Use life experiences?—add research:
• Can you pull a short period-of-time, like a move or relocation, or an event? Build on it by researching applicable situations of others.
• Is the setting a place you have traveled or lived?
• Describe a scene in real time to bring your reader along for the ride, or use time-travel noting the differences of lighting, travel, rural or urban, and geography.
• Is the scene at the shore of an ocean or lake resort? What are the sounds there? What did you buy for lunch, hot dogs smothered with chili? Describe how it tastes. Did you watch children chasing waves coming and going? Was it hot or rainy? How does the water feel? Slimy, muddy or clean?
Boost your descriptive writing with these elements:
• Use detail to express areas of importance; big picture, specific purpose, or differentiation,
• Use words that are vibrant, essential, and focused,
• Use metaphors, similes, and comparisons to tell the story,
• Use sense words to articulate a picture,
• Stay on point and write with clarity and economy
Post links in this series—Descriptive Writing for Fiction and Non-Fiction:
1) Make it Personable & Tangible: https://www.writersonthemove.com/2020/02/descriptive-writing-for-fiction-and-non.html
2) Make it Realistic: https://www.writersonthemove.com/2020/03/descriptive-writing-make-it-realistic.html
3) Make it with Specificity: https://www.writersonthemove.com/search?q=make+it+with+specificity
Visit her writer’s website at: https://deborahlynwriter.com/
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4 comments:
Deborah Lyn,
Thank you for this cornucopia of ideas to help writers put together excellent writing. If one doesn't work, then try another but the information for our work is out there. We just need to do the work to find it and incorporate it into our writing.
Terry
author of 10 Publishing Myths, Insights Every Author Needs to Succeed
This is so important. I was raised in Salt Lake City and really know the city well. But I somehow misplaced its famous Eagle Gate! I barely caught the error before publishing. One’s memory can play tricks on one! 😊
Great post, Deborah. Your post is chock full of tools writers need, research among the most important. As an example, for book one, I researched the color of construction workers' hard hats for the correct color, what police officers wear on their duty belts, and large machinery! For Book two, I've done extensive research on Quakers who settled in Virginia in the 1860s and especially the type of Bible they used. The type of Bible seemed hidden in the writings I encountered so I had to deduce that they used the King James version. I learned a lot about how Bibles were published in the second half of the 1800s; there were many different types of editions. I've saved my information and sources so that when I visit schools I can make these points to students.
Deborah, these are excellent tips for writing better descriptions. I always do research, even for some fiction picture books. It's so important to get the right feel and factual tidbit. Realistic elements help make the stories more relatable.
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