A descriptive essay is a type of essay that allows you to vividly narrate something, such as an object, person, location, experience, emotion, circumstance, or other phenomena. Unlike argumentative or persuasive essays, it relies on powerful imagery, evocative language, and the strategic use of literary devices to create a dominant impression.
A writer expresses their feelings creatively or artistically in a descriptive essay that attracts the reader’s attention. It uses sensory details like sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.
Types of Descriptive Essay
Five different types of descriptive essays are:
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Personal
This is the most common type. It focuses on describing a person, place, object, or memory from the writer’s own life. Its purpose is to create a vivid picture and evoke a specific feeling or insight about a personal experience. Here are some example topics:
- “The feeling of your childhood home’s kitchen on a holiday morning”.
- “The sensory details of your first concert experience”.
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Formal
This type is more objective and academic. It focuses on describing a subject with precise, factual, and accurate details. Its purpose is to provide a clear and unbiased representation of a subject for informational purposes. Example topics are:
- “The anatomical structure of a honeybee”.
- “The chemical process of photosynthesis”.
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Impressionalistic
This type is the opposite of a formal description. Its primary purpose is to convey a mood, feeling, or atmosphere rather than strictly factual details. It significantly evokes a specific mood or abstract feeling through descriptive language. Here are example topics:
- “The eerie silence and tension of an empty street at 3 AM”.
- “The overwhelming joy and chaos of a vibrant street festival”.
- Functional/Process
This essay describes how something works, how it is made, or how a process happens. It is prominently used to describe a sequence of events of the operation of a mechanism in a vivid, engaging way. For example, here are some functional essay topics:
- “The ritual of preparing a specific complex family recipe”.
- “The step-by-step process of a master glassblower creating a vase”.
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Character Profile
This type focuses intensely on describing a person, whether real or fictional. It significantly helps to paint a full portrait of a person that reveals their inner personality and essence through external details. Common example topics are:
- “A character sketch of a unique family member”.
- “A description of a historical figure based on portraits and writings, bringing them to life”.
What are the types of a descriptive essay?
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- Personal
- Formal
- Impressionalistic
- Functional/Process
- Character Profile
What is the Purpose of a Descriptive Essay?
The purpose of descriptive essay writing is to portray your feelings and emotions related to any object or event that enables readers to visualise what is being described. To do it, you can use sensory details that attract the senses, like sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.
An excellent narration in your descriptive essay can have a lasting impression on the reader’s mind.
What are the types of descriptions?
Descriptions are either subjective or objective.
In an objective description, you describe the object or event without letting your emotions and feelings influence the description. For example, an incident you witnessed or a news item: 25 people, including men, women, and children, died in a bus accident, and five people were severely injured.
Whereas in a subjective description, you need to describe the object or event through your emotions and feelings.
For example, 25 people, including men, women, and children, died in a bus accident, and five people were severely injured. It was a painful incident. People were screaming with fear and pain. I can still remember those screams, and I can’t forget those teary eyes and sad faces of those helpless people, including innocent children.
Descriptive Essay Structure
A descriptive essay consists of three parts: an introduction, main body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
The introduction must start with a strong opening line to develop your essay topic. If it is about any person, you can mention some specific personality traits and give some idea about physical appearance.
In the main body section, you should describe your topic in detail. The number of paragraphs is dependent on the length of the essay, but in general, one paragraph should contain 150-200 words. The first paragraph will provide the theme and the idea about the content of the next paragraphs. The next two paragraphs will describe the topic. To explain the topic, you should use sensory details, imaginary language, and words, including verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
In the conclusion, you need to provide a summary of the topic. In the last line, re-establish your thoughts and the primary theme of the essay.
Descriptive essay template
View or download this descriptive essay template, as it can exponentially help you work on your essay:
6 Steps to Writing a Descriptive Essay
The six essential steps to write a descriptive essay are:
Step 1: Choose your essay topic
The first step in writing your descriptive essay is to choose a topic that you can connect with. It should be something that you can observe or recall clearly enough to describe in minute detail. Your topic is based on a specific subject like a person, a place, an object, an event, or even an emotion.
Step 2: Brainstorm and gather sensory details
When you have a topic, the next step is to mine your memory and observations for details. Grab a notebook and answer these questions to get the best sensory details:
- What do you see? (colours, shapes, lighting, shadows, movement, or appearance)
- What do you hear? (volume, pitch, rhythm, silence, music, voices, or nature)
- What do you smell? (sweet, pungent, earthy, chemical, or nostalgic)
- What sensations can you feel? (rough, smooth, hot, cold, pain, pressure, and wind)
- Is there a specific taste to it? (salty, metallic, sweet, or bitter)
Step 3: Craft a strong thesis statement
Just like expository and discursive essays, a descriptive essay also needs a strong thesis statement. However, it is not about stating a fact to prove it; it’s more about creating a dominant impression. It acts as the central idea that all your descriptions will support. Here is an example:
“My grandmother’s kitchen, though tiny and perpetually stained with flour, was a warm sanctuary of love and cherished traditions”.
Step 4: Create the outline of your essay
After crafting a thesis statement, it’s time to outline your descriptive essay. Your vivid descriptions should be organised and easy to follow so that readers can easily understand what is written.
It also signficantly helps you to keep focused while writing your essay and avoids any confusion throughout.
Step 5: Start writing: “Show, Don’t Tell”
When writing a descriptive essay, follow the golden rule of “Show, Don’t Tell”. Don’t just tell the reader that something is scary. Instead, show them what made it scary. Here is an example:
Telling: “The house was old and creepy”.
Showing: “Paint peeled from the warped porch boards like dead skin, and a single shitter, hanging by its last rusted hanger, tapped an irregular rhythm against the broken window pane”.
When “showing” something, use strong verbs and employ figurative language like simile, metaphor, and personification. Also, incorporate sensory language in every paragraph.
Step 6: Revise, proofread, and edit
You have completed your descriptive essay, but it is just a draft. The real magic happens in revision and proofreading. Read your essay aloud to see if there are any awkward catchphrases or rhythm issues. Check your sensory details to see if they are appropriately presented.
Remove cliches, redundant words, and other extra phrases. Use editing and proofreading services to eliminate grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.
- Choose your essay topic
- Brainstorm and gather sensory details
- Craft a strong thesis statement
- Create the outline of your essay
- Start writing: “Show, Don’t Tell”
- Revise, proofread, and edit
How to Write a Descriptive Essay About a Person?
Writing a descriptive essay about a person is challenging, as you have to include specific traits and portray their character.
- Appearance: It is necessary to define physical traits like skin colour, hair, eyes, nose, height, body structure, etc. You may also describe the type of cloth and accessories to identify the person quickly.
- Manners: You should describe a person’s habits and behaviour: he smokes a cigar, drinks alcohol, or wears a hat or glasses.
- Character traits: The character traits are difficult to write. You should have enough knowledge about the person to describe the character trait. Some qualities may include honesty, sincerity, or negative qualities like resentful, arrogant, miser, etc.
- Emotions: You can also describe the person as melancholic, sanguine, choleric, or phlegmatic, with a sense of humour.
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Example of a Descriptive Essay
Here is an example of a descriptive essay:
“The Old Bookshop on Elm Street”
A sanctuary of whispered stories and time-worn paper, the old bookshop on Elm Street existed not just as a store, but as a living, breathing entity. Tucked between a modern cafe and a vacant lot, its weathered sign swayed gently, a relic calling out to those who valued the past. To step inside was to embark on a sensory journey, where the scent of ageing literature, the visual tapestry of countless spines, and the profound silence coalesced into a haven of the solitary soul.
The first impression was a powerful aroma, the musty perfume of yellowed paper and the sweet, vanilla-like scent of decaying lignin. This was underscored by a profound, velvet silence, broken only by the soft creak of floorboard underfoot. As my eyes adjusted, a chaotic landscape emerged. Towers of books leaned precariously, and teetering piles formed miniature canyons on the floor. Dust motes danced like fairies in the silvers of sunlight that pierced the grimy window, illuminating the faded titles and cracked leather bindings.
At the heart of this labyrinth sat the proprietor, an old man in a tweed jacket, whose presence was as calming as the surroundings. His gentle smile invited exploration. Reading out, I gently pulled a volume from its sung berth. My fingers traced the embossed cover, feeling the intricate patterns, before carefully flipping through its brittle, rough-cut papers. Each texture, from the cool gloss of a modern dust jacket to the soft, crumpling spine of an ancient tome, felt like a direct handshake with history.
The bookshop was, therefore, a tactile museum, a quiet rebellion against the digital age. It was more than a collection of books; it was an experience for the senses. To leave was to step back into a world that felt too loud and too new, forever carrying the quiet magic of the dusty sanctuary with me.
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Frequently Asked Questions
A narrative essay tells a story with a plot, sequence of events, and characters, focusing on “what happened”. However, a descriptive essay focuses on painting a detailed picture of a subject, immersing the reader in the sensory experience of “what it was like”.
The length of a standard descriptive essay often falls in the 500-100 word range. However, it can vary for longer essays.
Yes, descriptive essays are mostly written from the first-person perspective because you’re describing your own personal statements, memories, and sensory experiences.
