Painting a picture in readers’ minds is one of the most powerful techniques that an author can use to tell his story. Any author who masters this technique can have readers wrapped around his little finger as he takes them on an extraordinary journey that is his story. The one thing that both fiction and nonfiction writers must do to keep their books entertaining is to be as specific as possible.

Let’s take an example of an author who starts his story with a phrase like, “A guy walks into a café and orders a cup of coffee…” This beginning is very ambiguous and it doesn’t tell readers anything about where the café is, what type of a guy walks in, etc. Although it is just one sentence, it tells readers that this story might be imaginary and not something that really happened. Readers’ perception about the entire story can be spoilt by something as simple as an ambiguous start to a novel. People who write nonfiction stories have particularly high standards to uphold in terms of specificity. The reason is that readers want to be taken as close as possible to the firsthand account of what happened.

Fiction writers also don’t get a break. Even though readers know that the writer is talking about a make-believe world, they still expect some degree of authenticity. The easiest way to create this authenticity is to be as specific as possible – something that can be achieved only by descriptive writing.

Going back to the vague first sentence above, we can make it less ambiguous by making it more descriptive. The following might be a better opening sentence:

“A frail-looking guy walked into a busy café and after a tired look around ordered a coffee. The man noticeably struggled to sit on the tall stool at the counter. His determination to start a conversation clearly showed that he was either lonely or very bored.”

The addition of these details makes the story a bit less ambiguous and it enables readers to start visualizing the scene. The intent of the guy is also clearer. Readers can also start to identify with the man because it exposes some of the weaknesses that he is struggling with.

Kicking descriptive writing up a notch

For an author to write great descriptive pieces, he should provide readers with specific answers to basic questions such as “What? When? Who? How? And Why?” Another way to excel in descriptive writing is to incorporate the senses. An author should try to stimulate a reader’s sense of sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch as many times as possible. If your story has an omniscient narrator, you should use him/her to tell people what they would feel if they were in the story.

A descriptive writer should make sure that his words convey the story in a way that readers can easily visualize. A single well-placed word can tell readers more about a character than a whole paragraph of ambiguous prose.

There is no limit to the amount of specificity you can use in a paragraph of descriptive writing. However, you should be careful not to add so much detail because it can interfere with the pace of a story.