Descriptive Writing: Lesson Three

Using Comparisons to Create Imagery

The third skill in writing descriptively, is learning to compare things in order to enhance the description/imagery created, so that your reader can visualise what you are describing. This is where you employ figurative devices. It would help in this phase of your work if you are able to compare things to create imagery – sensory details that create mental pictures.

What do you do when you compare two things? Well typically you examine what the two items being compared have in common and their differences as well. However, when we use comparisons creatively, we focus on what the two items being compared have in common, because that is the detail that will help them to make the right link and understand what you are trying to say.

For practice, think about what a broom and the wind have in common. What if I should say, ‘The wind goes about like a broom sweeping up the leaves in my yard’? What would I mean? Let’s see.

Broom
Has a stick and soft or hard bristles, people use it to get rid of dust by pushing or pulling it on the ground or against surfaces.

Wind
Has no form, blows wherever it pleases, can push things in any direction.

Similarity
Both can move things by pushing against it.

So in that statement about the broom and the wind, the writer was referring to the wind moving things the way a broom would sweep things.

Try to find something being compared in this paragraph below.



Maria loved eating plums. She liked sinking her teeth into the juicy, fleshy fruit. Its sweet tangy taste always made her mouth salivate like a river after heavy rains. Her favourite place to consume plums was outside on the backyard porch, overlooking the dreamy bay in the distance. It always made her happy.


Look at the bold portion below:

Its sweet tangy taste always made her mouth salivate like a river after heavy rain.

The writer was comparing Maria’s mouth salivating to a river after heavy rains. The writer was using the imagery of heavy rains to show how much Maria’s mouth watered whenever she ate plums. It might sound like a stretch, but you get a picture in your head of Maria’s watering mouth.

You should remember though, if you plan to use comparisons in your descriptions, you need to bear in mind that your comparisons are only effective if your reader can relate to them. Suppose your reader had never seen a river or even a river after heavy rains, they will not understand what you are trying to say. Thus, simple imagery always work best.

Below, are some popular ways imagery is created in description figuratively (implied and creative language).

Simile - makes a comparison using as or like. For example,
The bone is as big as the dog. (The dog and the bone are being compared in size)

Metaphor - takes an item being compared and says it is what it is being compared to. For example, ‘You’re a lion man Tom, you are loud and strong.’
(Tom has taken on the characteristics of strength and loudness that lions have.)

Personification - gives an inanimate object (non-living thing) the behaviour, feelings or characteristics of a human being. For example,
The cricket’s screeching bit into my ears.
(The cricket’s sound has been given the ability to bite, the writer simple means
that the cricket’s sound is so loud and annoying it feels like a bite.)

Oxymoron - uses two opposing/opposite ideas to describe the same item simultaneously, especially if they are placed beside each other. For example,
My wedding was a catastrophic symphony.
(Catastrophes are usually horrible and unpleasant and we know that symphonies are usually harmonious, so how do they join to describe the wedding? The person meant that even though some terrible things, probably accidents happened at the wedding, everything came together in the end.)

Two other types of figurative devices that use comparisons are allusions and allegory’s.

Allusions are references to famous or known events or people in the past that a present situation or person seems to resemble.

 And allegories are extended metaphors – so instead of just using the metaphor in one sentence, you continue making references to the comparison throughout the writing, almost as if using it as a symbol of the person/place/thing.

But there is plenty of time to get to know more figurative devices, so don’t you worry if you don’t understand them the first time you hear them. Practice makes perfect.

Our next lesson will introduce you to descriptive writing styles.

Cheers to writing.