Fleeting Touches of Description

Among the ancient textbooks that crowd my shelves (books, I'm told, that should have been ditched or donated long ago) is one by Evelyn May Albright that's simply titled Descriptive Writing (Macmillan, 1911). The opening lines of Albright's introduction strike an apologetic note, but that soon gives way to a more appreciative air:

Although the work of description, considered with relation to other kinds of writing, may fairly be called subordinate and incidental, it is no mean art. To make the slight touches of description vivid and effective, not only must one have a trained observation, imaginative ability, and good taste: one must be master of all the resources of style. For there is, after all, no finer test of an author's style than his power to describe.

Though I wouldn't presume to "test" an author's style, I'm always on the lookout for "vivid and effective" descriptive passages--those that can be studied and enjoyed for their felicities.

If you're interested in a collection of such passages from 19th-century writers (Ruskin, Burroughs, Dickens, and the like), try to get your hands on a worn copy of Descriptive Writing. But if your taste in prose styles runs more toward the modern, stay right here. You'll find a number of memorable descriptions of people and places in our Scrapbook of Styles: Passages for Rhetorical Analysis. Here are a few favorites.

• Comparison in Sarah Vowell's Place Description
  In this carefully crafted paragraph from the essay "Shooting Dad," Vowell conveys distinct impressions of her father and herself by describing--and comparing--their different work spaces at home.



• A Character Sketch by John McPhee
  John McPhee's essay "Giving Good Weight" provides a detailed study of the vendors and customers at the Greenmarket in New York City. Here he combines vivid descriptions with direct quotations in a sketch of a schoolteacher who works in the market during summer vacations.



• Parenthetical Details in Capote's Place Description
  In these three paragraphs from In Cold Blood, Truman Capote offers a brief history and description of Garden City, Kansas, frequently interrupting his sentences (with parentheses) to insert factual and illustrative details.



• David Sedaris's Description of a Nudist Trailer Park
  This passage from Sedaris's humorous account of a visit to a nudist colony focuses on his tacky trailer and the surrounding neighborhood.



• Russell Baker's Sketch of Mr. Fleagle
  In this description of his high school English teacher, journalist Russell Baker relies on repetition to convey an overwhelming impression of dullness and (there's no better word for it) primness.



• Eudora Welty's Sketch of Miss Duling
  Eudora Welty's precise physical description of her first-grade teacher, Miss Duling, also provides insights into the character of this "lifelong subscriber to perfection."



• Joseph Mitchell's Place Description: McSorley's Saloon
  In this paragraph from the essay "The Old House at Home" (1940), Mitchell describes New York City's oldest Irish tavern in a series of clearly arranged sentences, many of them short and deceptively simple yet always precise and evocative.

I hope you enjoy these flashes of descriptive prose. As Evelyn May Albright noted almost a century ago, "Fleeting touches of description are not only more graceful but more natural and convincing than a more extended treatment would be."

More About Composing Descriptions:

• How to Write a Descriptive Paragraph
• Model Descriptive Paragraphs