Descriptive Writing Techniques:
Creating a 3-Dimensional World

Every writer faces the same problem: the world inside your head is vivid, three-dimensional, and alive, and the page is flat. When you are writing, it can seem mocking and flat. Descriptive writing is the way writers close that gap.

This page walks through how description has evolved from the ornate Victorian style to the restrained, sensory-first approach that defines modern fiction. You’ll find examples, techniques, and a story generator at the bottom to put the ideas into practice immediately.

The Impossible Task

We touched on description briefly in the Setting section, but descriptive writing techniques are required in every part of the story to set the scene, action, motivation, and character. As writers, we are set with the almost impossible task of creating a three-dimensional world on two-dimensional paper. Not only that, but for the most part, it is a communication between strangers who will never meet.

The Victorian Style: Over-Explanation

The Victorians over-explained everything. To be ornate and descriptive was the style at the time.

Take the first sentence of Paul Clifford by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, written in 1830. It is, of course, famous—and is the inspiration for the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, where modern writers try to top his overly ornate opening sentence:

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

Another example is Charles Dickens. He was, of course, a skilled master at storytelling, so we can see the obvious difference between him and the poor Edward Bulwer-Lytton, though the style remains dense.

The opening sentence of Bleak House:

“Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats.”

His use of language was masterly, and if you like words, it is enjoyable even now—but it is far from modern writing.

The Modern Style: Restraint

A modern writer is far more restrained. If you are writing today, make every word have a function. Unlike the Victorian usage of a laundry list of unnecessary words, keep it short and simple. Like the precepts of “Show vs. Tell,” use words that can be perceived by the five senses and don’t force the reader to a conclusion.

In the name of simplification, writers can employ more complex language using specific literary tools:

• Simile: Compare two things that are different using “like” or “as.”
  • “The night was as still as the grave; skittering creatures crashed away in the grass from the beam of their flashlights.”
• Metaphor: Stating one thing is another (symbolically).
  • “Even at eighty years old, my mother’s tongue was a knife.”
• Personification: Giving human-like traits to non-human objects.
  • “Outside the wind was hungry, aching. The dog refused to leave the doorstop.”
• Onomatopoeia: Using words that sound like their meaning.
  • “Snap, crackle—my cereal sounded particularly noisy this morning.”

Putting It All Together

I tried to add as many of the concepts as I could in this little snippet:

“My eyes lingered on the worn concrete bench on the side of the garden. It felt like another lifetime away when John and I would sit there at night, quietly overlooking the garden in our backyard. He’d sip his raspberry tea, hot, even in the depths of summer, while I’d have my lemonade, always snipping a sprig of fresh mint to finish it off. We didn’t need to talk much; the silence between us was comforting, filling a part of my soul that I haven’t felt since.

It’s been two years now. I like to think he would approve of where I scattered his ashes. We’d spent so many hours here, tending the garden and sitting together, that it felt like the only place that made sense, a fitting final resting place. Some had wafted away in the impersonal wind, but the majority had fallen to the ground. In the spring, I had planted daisies, his favorite flower, over them. Patting the rich dirt down had seemed like a prayer to life.”

One way to practice filling out details is to take prompts and write a story around them. DND and fantasy stories are nice because the settings are so rich and loan themselves to good descriptions. It is easy to show vs tell if your opponent is a green dripping ogre with a lichen encrusted club.

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