Boring descriptions are boring. When writing a story, it’s important to not only engage your reader with the plot, setting, and characters, but also with the very words on the page.
If you’re not having fun describing something, your reader won’t have fun visualizing it!
During the last stream, chat and I played the Unique Description Challenge. Chat came up with a bunch of random words, and then we voted on which words we would use to describe things in fun, unique ways.
For example, if our word was “ocean,” then we could use it describe an old man: “His face was a rippling ocean of flesh, waves of wrinkles crashing against his lips, nose and eyes, glistening in the sun’s reflection off his bald, sweaty head.”
You can see all the crazy words and descriptions we came up with here,
or scroll down for some highlights.
1. Describe something using “avocado”
- Her body was like an avocado; a soft, squishy, delectable exterior encasing a cold, hard heart.
- Susan was the avocado of our guacamole group; without her, we would just me a mess of spices and onions. But it was Jean who was the cumin, the one who gave our group the zest it really needed.
- My face was left like an avocado. Dark bruises transitioning to bright greens around my left eye.
- Some say they know talent when they see it. I call BS. Spotting talent is like picking out good avocado from your local convenience store; you need to take a hands-on approach. Hidden gems only come to those who dig for them.
2. Describe something using “sock puppet”
- My ex boyfriend was like a sock puppet: rough around the edges, full of fluff, and brainless enough that I had to control his every move.
- The principal stood on stage in front of all the students, his head flopping up and down, spouting meaningless words as if he were a sock puppet controlled by the superintendent standing next to him.
- The dinner smelled worse than a sock puppet thrown in anger under a bed after a disastrous and sweaty fifth grade puppet show, left to fester with the memories of everyone’s mom laughing at you.
- I refused to tell my wife the truth about getting fired. She would not understand it, just like when I told her about my affair with a sock puppet.
- I was 17 years old when the war on drugs hit full stride. Ex-cons rolled through our classrooms one after another to warn us of the dangers of pot, our principal’s fist so far up their sock-puppet butts that the stench could almost drown out the smell of weed that wafted through the building… almost.
3. Describe something using “Shrek”
- My mother must’ve thought she was pretty intimidating when she yelled at me. But in truth, I had to hold back from laughing. She just looked like Shrek, a big round ogre with a high-pitched voice that nobody cared about.
- As far as I know, most people like avocado. But for me, taking a bit out of the disgusting round green globule was like chomping right into Shrek himself.
- My depression turns me into Shrek: I eat too much, shower too little, and want to have nothing to do with anyone. Ever.
- The old man’s property looked like a swamp, unkempt and riddled with ‘no trespassin’ signs. Nobody knew the owner’s name – nobody ever saw him – but rumors circulated that he was a man-eater, and we’d taken to calling him Shrek.
4. Describe something using “kidney”
- They say your wife is of your rib; and she can be a pain in my side. I guess I’m her kidney because that woman has NO FILTER.
- Twins are like kidneys: it’s good to have both, but if something happens to one, you always have a spare.
- “I was like a second kidney to him. He enjoyed my presence, and that made me happy, but I just couldn’t shake the nagging paranoia in my gut that, when times got tough, he’d happily sell me away for a few extra bucks.”
- The club bouncer was like a kidney, keeping the lifeblood of the youth inside the club safe from the riffraff outside.
- The water treatment plant in the middle of the city was like a malformed kidney; it failed to process the slimy water that supplied the small, sickly settlement of 5,000.
- Something had changed in me over night. I stared down at my bowl of breakfast cereal, no longer seeing delicious sugary bits floating in milk. Instead, they were all calcified kidneys swimming in white puss and bile.
5. Describe something using “Scott’s hairline”
- As the writing stream progressed, Scott’s hope for humanity began to disintegrate along with the few remaining follicles dotting his hairline.
- Scott’s jokes fell as flat as his hairline.
- The wavy mountains of Japan reminded Scott of his hairline… now that he thought about it, everything reminded him of his hairline… was this what they called a ‘mid-life crisis’?”
- The North Korean border was like Scott’s hairline, a point separating a barren stretch from a rapidly growing center of bustling activity.
After that, chat voted that we write this prompt: Scientists have created a man-made atmosphere around the planet of Mars in order to make it completely livable. Your character is one of the lucky few who is chosen to be among the first to inhabit the planet. What they don’t know is that there is no atmosphere…and others already inhabit it.
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 7:30pm-10:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Scott Wilson is the author of the novel Metl: The ANGEL Weapon,
forthcoming March 2019.
