How to Use the Bible to Practice Descriptive Writing

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you know that I freelance for Christian publishing companies. My work often sends me digging deep into the bible, thinking about its words, trying to imagine myself in its scenes. One thing I’ve noticed is the bible holds excellent examples of descriptive writing.  Many of its ancient authors revealed specific details using vivid and carefully selected words. They wove their words together not only for the purpose of reporting but also to entice readers to imagine while using all of their senses.

Read these examples from The Book of Isaiah.

“The women of Zion are haughty, walking along with outstretched necks, flirting with their eyes, strutting along with swaying hips, with ornaments jingling on their ankles.” (Isaiah 3:16 NIV)

“I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” (Isaiah 18:4 NIV)

“I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”’At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.” (Isaiah 6:1-4 NIV)

“You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” (Isaiah 55:12 NIV)

A tried-and-true technique for practicing descriptive writing is to read and model well-written sentences and paragraphs. Have you ever tried using the bible as a model?

Below are two sentence starters. Add your own words to build a descriptive paragraph for each. Then look up the scriptures following the sentences to see what Isaiah wrote.

The Lord will take away all the women’s fine clothing and accessories . . .

(Isaiah 3:18-23)

The blacksmith takes a tool . . .

(
Isaiah 44:12)

This week, meditate on one of your favorite stories or scenes from the bible. Imagine yourself being the first to tell the story. What details would you include? What words and phrases could you use to catch readers’ attention and draw them into the scene.

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Winter’s Best Descriptive Prose

It’s cold here in Wisconsin, and snowy. I’m not one of those who enjoy being outside in winter. So, instead of putting on a pair of ice skates or skis, I decided to stay warm and cozy at my writing desk and find out how some of the best authors describe winter.

There is art to writing descriptive prose. It requires self-control to ensure that every word counts toward moving the story forward. Stephen King said, “In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it ‘got boring,’ the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.”

Notice how the poet and essayist, Donald Hall, used descriptive prose to set this rural scene.

From Seasons at Eagle Pond

They seem tentative and awkward at first, then in a hastening host a whole brief army falls, white militia paratrooping out of the close sky over various textures, making them one. Snow is white and gray, part and whole, infinitely various yet infinitely repetitious, soft and hard, frozen and melting, a creaking underfoot and a soundlessness. But first of all it is the reversion of many into one. It is substance, almost the idea of substance, that turns grass, driveway, hayfield, old garden, log pile, Saab, watering trough, collapsed barn, and stonewall into the one white.

Descriptive prose is like art says W.M. Hunt, a professor at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. “When you see birds fly you do not see any feathers, you are not to draw reality, but reality as it appears to you.”

In this excerpt from her memoir, An American Childhood, author Annie Dillard shows how her character perceives a winter scene.

Now we sat in the dark dining room, hushed. The big snow outside, the big snow on the roof, silenced our words and the scrape of our forks and our chairs. The dog was gone, the world outside was dangerously cold, and the big snow held the houses down and the people in.

Behind me, tall chilled windows gave out onto the narrow front yard and the street. A motion must have caught my mother’s eye; she rose and moved to the windows, and Father and I followed. There we saw the young girl, the transfigured Jo Ann Sheehy, skating alone under the streetlight.

She was turning on ice skates inside the streetlight’s yellow cone of light—illumined and silent. She tilted and spun. She wore a short skirt, as if Edgerton Avenue’s asphalt had been the ice of an Olympic arena. She wore mittens and a red knitted cap below which her black hair lifted when she turned. Under her skates the street’s packed snow shone; it illumined her from below, the cold light striking her under her chin.

I stood at the tall window, barely reaching the sill; the glass fogged before my face, so I had to keep moving or hold my breath. What was she doing out there? Was everything beautiful so bold?

Note those last two sentences. Could this winter scene also serve as a plot twist in a work of fiction?

It’s January—the coldest winter month. If you live in the north you either love or hate it. If you live in the far south perhaps you have never experienced snow or the stinging cold of a bleak January day. But as a writer think about how you would describe it.

Study how authors have described winter in their novels and essays. Look out your window or look at winter images, both still and videos. Then sit down and write your best winter prose.

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How Autumn Can Supercharge Your Descriptive Writing

Last month, I shared with you summer-themed poetry and suggested you study its descriptive paragraphs, sentences and phrases and apply what you learned to your own writing.

The seasons have shifted now from summer to fall. Think about the ambiance words create in these autumn poems and compare them to the mood of summer poetry.

In her “November Night”, American poet, Adelaide Crapsey (1878–1914) invokes a powerful image using less than twenty words. What does your mind “see” when you read her poem?

November Night
Listen…
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.

Notice how the English poet and aesthetic philosopher, T.E. Hulme (1883–1917), uses similes to create a word picture in his short poem, “Autumn”.

Autumn
A touch of cold in the Autumn night –
I walked abroad,
And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge
Like a red-faced farmer.
I did not stop to speak, but nodded,
And round about were the wistful stars
With white faces like town children.

Now, compare the mood of the English poet Rainer Maria Rilke‘s poem “Autumn” to Hulme’s. Rilke (1875–1926) was a master at weaving word pictures with existential thoughts.

Autumn
The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning “no.”
And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.
We’re all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It’s in them all.
And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

Three poets: Crapsey, Hulme and Rilke, all living in the same era, writing about the same theme, using words to create significantly different images. Use what you’ve learned reading their words to supercharge your own writing—

Start right now by writing
your own autumn-themed descriptive
paragraph or poem.

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and inspiration for writers.

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