Descriptive essays can be quite tricky

Throughout their academic careers, students will often find the need to write a variety of essays that can take any one of a number of different forms. One of these forms of essays is the ‘descriptive essay’. A descriptive essay is, unsurprisingly considering its name, an essay that involves the description of something. The topic of theme of the essay can be inspired from all kinds of different things. It may be that the topic that is being described is physical or non-physical, such as an emotion or concept.

With such a wide scope from which to get started and, with what sounds like an easy set of requirements, it could be easy to think that writing a descriptive essay will be incredibly straightforward. However, this is not always the case; in fact, it can quite often be quite tricky at times, with a variety of different obstacles along the way.

Some things that make a descriptive essay so hard to write include:

• Trying to think of an interesting topic to write about
• Running out of ideas for that topic
• Making the essay interesting and/or original

These are just three examples of what can make descriptive essays so difficult to write and, in many ways, they each impact upon each other. For example, if you find it hard to think of an interesting topic to start with then it can be easy to run out of ideas, which can lead to a dull or uninspiring essay.

As a result, the starting point of the essay writing process – i.e. thinking of what topic to write about – can prove to be a lot trickier than it sounds. The topic needs to be interesting enough to start with so that it provides the opportunity to write about different ideas; something that is particularly important for longer descriptive essays.

These ideas then need to be described in as interesting a way as possible, which can benefit from a somewhat unique or original take on the theme. For those that struggle with creative writing, this style of essay can, therefore, be a particular struggle.

Those with imaginative minds are likely to find descriptive essay writing easier, particularly when it comes to selecting a topic in the first place. However, trying to envisage what to write about when thinking of a specific topic, and whether or not that topic has enough scope for ideas, can be a struggle at times for even the most creative minds.