Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Description: The Art of Engaging the Reader

There's a huge difference between the following two sentences:
  • I have a big dog.
  • My dog, Bear, is a hairy brown beast weighing over 100 pounds, whose right ear rarely stands at attention.
The first sentence just leaves too much to the reader's imagination, while the second sentence provides a better picture. That's the essence of descriptive writing: using enough detail to help the reader form a picture inside his or her mind.

Here's your task: Describe what you ate for dinner tonight (remember to give sufficient details to help the reader visualize clearly).

Here's my example: Tonight my husband and I ate a simple dinner of meat and potatoes. The meat simmered for eight hours in a mouthwatering mixture of beef broth, Worcestershire sauce, and a special blend of herbs and spices. The meat had cooked so slowly in the crock pot and was so tender that it fell apart as I attempted to place portions on our plates. I also served baked potatoes, split and steaming hot. I doused the potatoes with low fat margarine, a dash of salt and pepper, and a tablespoon of shredded cheddar cheese. This simple fare was satisfying indeed.

Your turn! You have until Tuesday 2/1, midnight to post your description.

14 comments:

  1. What I ate for dinner tonight, was boneless spare ribs chopped in little tiny pieces, with white steamed rice. This meal was provided by the greatest chinese restaurant, called Golden City.

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  2. I had fried pork chops, with a very good tossed salad. The salad had red onions,chopped eggs, cheese, spring onions, and tomatoes. It was topped with Hidden Valley Salad Crispins the Ranch flavor and Italian Dressing. The Pork Chops were seasoned with a house seasoning, which concist of garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper and a surpise!!. They were than fired until golden brown and serve with a warm rolls.

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. For dinner I had a delicious juicy pink New York Strip steak, homemade fluffy white mashed potatoes with the juices of the steak on the top drizzled off the sides, and finally green steaming hot string-beans on the side. Can't forget my large glass of whole milk.

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  5. I took dinner tonight with my dad and mom,was salmon fish with steamed brown rice,salad made of tomatoes,cucumber,carrot,and little green chilli with Italian salad dressing and coke.My mom cooked the fish in a slowcooker,and rice was cooked in a ricecooker with little butter.
    It was delicious.

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  6. Tonight I ate a simple dinner alone, that consist of steak and steam okra.
    The steak was seasoned with a blend of herbs,spices and sauted onions, cooked medium rare. Okra, steam with butter, salt and pepper until tender. Served with a glass of ice tea. I enjoyed every bit of my dinner last night, it was delicious.

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  7. For dinner my family and I had stuffed chicken, mashed potatoes, and corn. The chicken is stuffed in the middle and has cream of mushroom soup as well as cheese melted over it. The chicken has a wonderful unique flavor between the stuffing, cheese, and mushroom soup. The mashed potatoes were creamy, they were made with whole milk, butter, and just a hint of sour cream. And the corn was seasoned lightly with salt and butter. To drink the children had chocolate milk. My husband and I drank Pepsi. I was a wonderful meal, my husband and the kids all asked for seconds. I ate enough while cooking that I barely finished my plate.

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  8. For dinner my family order take out. We had the meat lovers pizza from Papa John's. Plus we order wings the flavor was lemon pepper. Also had cola for the drink.


    Shakita.D

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  9. Tonight I had a really good dinner. It was made up of chicken and rice. the chicken was cooked for about 3 hours in the oven and the rice was cook on the stove and to drink I had mtn dew. We also had ice cream after.

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  10. Tonight for dinner I had baked chicken, white rice and broccoli. I seasoned the chicken with different spices and I aslo let it marinate in
    italian dressing and lemon juice before I went to work. After I came home from work I chopped some onions, carrots and potatoes and and put it the oven and set it to 425 degrees. Afterwards I had some left over onions, carrots and potatoes so I cooked them on the stove and added some olive oil, species and herbs then added to the broccoli. Finally I made some white rice with butter. Therefore my masterpiece was finish.

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  11. For dinner my mom and I went to cheese cake factory, I had a delicious tasteful hamburger. With 100% all natural beef juicy to the point where when you bite in it all the flavor comes at you like a splash of goodness. All American cheese with lettuce and tomato and mayo, man you can't get a better dinner than that. To put it all down I enjoyed a nice tall glass of lemon ice tea.

    Raul Rodriguez

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  12. My dinner tonight was extremely delicious. So it starts with the fine white china plate with a circular silver rim. The main dish was a serving of New york strip steak cooked medium rare, a brown outside skin with a semi red inside. The side dishes were steamed asparagis cooked perfectly so it was really green and so hot it was steaming also served with yellow corn.For desert we were served Chocolate ice cream in a blue bowl.

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  13. Today my boyfriend and I made our famous Chicken Alfredo Pasta. First I put the pasta in the boiling water then my boyfriend started cutting the chicken, then seasoned it with a secret recipe, some lemon of course and then threw it on the frying pan, while simmering he threw some more spices on it while the chicken was being cooked. Afterwards the chicken was put into the pasta after draining and Alfredo sauce was then added to finish our exquisite meal and bring it to life with mouth watering taste.

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  14. Dinner was a special treat, my brother and I made an Italian dish and it was delicious. We cut the chicken breast and soaked them in the juice to marinate it. Next, my brother started to cook the pasta sauce, while waiting for the juice to soak into the meat. After the pasta sauce was cooked and chicken marinated, we got the meat, covered it with bread crumbs and top it off with a slice of cheese. And then we put in the oven to cook for an hour. Lastly spaghettis were made to make dinner more filling.

    F. Rivas-Plata

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