Detail means Showing, not Telling

Essays Contain Two Types of Detail

• Concrete--a naming a thing or class of things; characterized by immediate experience of realities whether physical things, sensations, or emotions: belonging to or standing for actual things or events.
• Abstract--difficult to understand, considered apart from any application to a particular object or specific instance: insufficiently factual.

Assault is abstract because it could be a push in the back, a kick in the shins, a slap on the face, a poke in the eye, or a knife in the gut (which might be attempted murder rather than assault). With abstract phrasing, your reader may come to just about any conclusion. With concrete/specific phrasing, your reader is much more likely to come to the conclusion you seek as a writer.

Details: Sensory and Otherwise

The life in writing comes from well chosen nouns and verbs. Look at the examples below to see how this can work.

Verbs

"To Run Fast" is a verb (to run) and an adverb (fast) that lets the reader know how someone is running. Consider instead using a more accurate verb: "sprint" (which is running fast for a short distance), "lope" (running fairly fast, likely for a long distance), "gallop" (running with long strides at a fast pace), "dodge" (moving quickly over a short distance, like just around the corner), "dash" (which is somewhat like sprint, though less formal), and so on.

Apply the same thinking to your choice of nouns. Naming: Point to objects with their names. Use concrete nouns to name specifics. This requires power of observation. Don't just write about your car. Let the reader know if it is a 1965 Volkwswagen or a 1995 Infinity G20. Such details shows more to the reader, by using just a few more words, than does a simple "car."

Detailing: Add details to the nouns and make them more specific. Answer the questions--what size is it? how many are there? what is it made of ? where is it located? what is its condition? what is its use? where does it come from? what is its effect? what is its value? This too requires power of observation. Use modifiers which answer these questions (adjectives and adverbs)

Use your senses!

• The sense of sight: What do you see in your field of vision? Show the necessary details.
• The sense of hearing: If sounds are important, name the sounds as well as where they are coming from.
• The sense of smell: name the object from whence they come as well as what they smell like.
• The sense of taste: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter cover most of them with some variations.
• The sense of touch: Writers don't often describe the sense of touch directly or even report the act of feeling. Likely because only a few nouns and verbs name sensations besides words such as touch, feel, tickle, brush, scratch, sting, itch, tingle.

Point-of-View

A stationary vantage point: Done from a fixed point. Limited. Imagine describing someone from a stationary vantage point. If you are behind them, then your description is limited to what you see from that view.

A moving point of view: Provides a more comprehensive view, move through or around what is being described.

10 Keys to Handling Description

1. To create people, places, and events that seem real, use words and phrases that create sensory impressions. Nouns and Verbs are needed here!
2. Give readers the same sensory information and details they would notice and find important if they were in presence of what you were describing.
3. In general, use adjectives that describe: thick, salty, jangling, furry, speckled, sweet--rather than those that judge: ugly, spectacular, annoying, breathtaking, pathetic, disgusting, beautiful--except when your own evaluation is necessary to your reader.
4. Combine imagery from two or more senses--sights, sounds, smells, touches, and tastes.
5. Consider which sensory impressions are most significant in support of the essay's goals and choose your details accordingly.
6. The sense of smell is the most powerful and evocative--and most neglected--of all senses. Use it appropriately.
7. Choose details that reveal character's personality--kind of shoes worn, what she does just before going to bed every night, or the way eyebrows are raised when flattered or amused. Then describe these details in the action of the narrative. Don't simply write that someone wore "interesting shoes." Describe those shoes as "black leather motorcycle boots that reached his knees with silver buckles every two inches from the ankle to the top of the boot."
8. Consider combining the real and the unreal to create a vivid description or image. hospital room: whoosh of air conditioning from classroom, hum of lights from where you work, the machinery sounds a photo lab, chatter of a co-worker, and so on.
9. Choose the concrete and specific over the general and abstract.
10. Use every bit of detail your reader needs, and not a bit more.

Gather more details than you think necessary for you topic and assertion.

With a person--begin with an assertion about that person: that they are a compulsive worker, a perfectionist, a slob, someone to be emulated for certain reasons (they are the type of person you hope to become). write on someone you know well and whose personality you believe others will find interesting. Show how this person embodies a type worth discussing and illustrate this person with graphic details: actions, words, appearances, contrasts.