Descriptive Writing and Sensory Details

Descriptive writing is another technique of  writing that we usually use. Descriptive writing is a kind of writing that describes something and normally without dialogs. Descriptive writing looks more official and scientific than narrative writing. Descriptive writing is often a fact, because it is used to give a report of an observation. However, not all descriptive writings contains fact. Sometimes, it can be a prediction and description about something will happen if lose our senses.

Sensory details are all details that we can catch with our senses. In an observation report, sensory details is very important. Sensory details give information to the readers about characteristics of something we observe. Sensory details usually appear in a form of non-action verbs, such as "smells", "looks", "tastes", "sounds", and "feels".

One of the descriptive story containing sensory details is "What if I am blind?" This story will contains my prediction, feeling, and everything will happen if I am blind.

Mission Impossible

I chose to write "What will happen to me if I am blind" because I thought that eyes or seeing sense is the more important than hearing sense. With eyes, we can contend deafness better than only ears without eyes. However, without ears is not good also. We can't hear expressions from other people around us. 

If I am blind, I will became a very different person than today. I enjoy playing car, train, and airplane simulators very much. Without eyes, we cant do those things. I also enjoy journey so much. I seldom sleep inside a car, an airplane, or a train; because I enjoyed looking after fields, mountains, beaches, and even traffics. For me, it looks like heaven and apple for my eyes. I really enjoyed journey. Maybe, when I grow up, my hobby is driving.

Without eyes, we can't see anything. World just looks black, solid black without any object. I can't see anything. I will get very bored without looking at all of I like. It was impossible for me to even write this blog. I will need help from other people to tell me about the beauty of nature around us. I am impossible to drive and play simulators without eyes. I need help from other people to do everything very much, and I can't become an independent person because of blindness. It is impossible to have a life without eyes for me, at least if I got blind this second.

Folk Tales

Folk tales is also an example of narrative writing. We can re-write folktales by changing the story focus. Usually, a folk tale has we (the teller) as the focus. All of characters told has "he", "she", or "they". Now, I would like to retell a Javanese folk tale called "Timun Mas" or "Gold Cucumber" or "Gold Gherkin". I focused to the Giant, so all the words "I" , "My", and "Me" means the Giant.

Gold Gherkin

I lived very long time ago, thousands years ago. I lived in a forest, near farmers' village. All of the villagers feared of me. But, I didn't know why this happen. As all villagers had to pass this forest to get into their house from field, I heard what they were saying, grumbling, sharing, and praying about. I heard the most about Mr. and Mrs. Simin's prayers about having a child. They said, "Lord, we know that You are kind and give all of what we need, but please give us a children. Just one Lord, please, please..." 

"Wow, it's a good moment to have a maid, although I have to wait for a long time:, I said hopefully. Then, I decided to reply them, "OK, I will give you a daughter." They were very surprised. "I am the giant! But, in her age of fifteen, you have to give she back for me! Deal?", I continued. They think for a moment, then replied "Hmm... OK, we deal. Thank you a lot, Giant." Not a long time after, Mrs Simin was pregnant. She gave a birth to a cute and beautiful baby daughter. They gave "Timun Mas" as a name for their daughter.

I waited for a very long time for her. I have to count day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. But, I knew what I waited is important. I could use her as a maid or even meal!!! Ha, ha, ha, just wait, Giant. It would be a beautiful girl. Then, I said, "Ah, two weeks to go..."

"Mrs, I can't wonder that I have to give this cute daughter to the giant", Mr. Simin said. "What? I almost forgot about it. Two weeks to go, right? What must we do?", Mrs. Simin replied. When the time came, I went to their house. They said that they wanted to postpone giving her daughter for three days. What was that? I was very mad and scolded them, "OK, if you don't give Timun Mas that day, I will take you as a replacement of Timun!" Three days later, I went back to their house, but Timun was gone. She escaped from the back door. Luckily, I still saw her.


Angrily, I chased her with all of my power. Timun was very crazy. When I was near, she threw a cucumber seed. When it hit the ground, it became a lot of cucumber tree which full of ripe cucumbers. I stopped and enjoy it for a moment, ignoring Timun. Then, I realized and chased her again. After I ate and full, she hurt me by throwing a thorn to the ground. It become thorn-brushes in front of me. They really slowed and hurt me. I had to chase her with all hurts and injuries in my body.


After that, I still got attacks from Timun. After hurt, I chased Timun again. Luckily, my long legs ran faster than her short leg. Then, she threw a little bit of salt to the ground. Then, the ground changes into wide sea suddenly. I had to swim, but Timun could run. After wide sea, I ran behind a clump of dried shrimp paste or known as "terasi". It changed into a mud pond. When I passed it, I fell and absorbed by that pond. I called her back to help me, but she didn't want to help me. After that, I felt hurt and hot, then I didn't know what happened after it. (Because I was died already)

"What if..." Story

Another example of narrative story or narrative writing is "What if..." story. "What if..." story is a fiction story about what will happen if something in our world changes or disappear. Last time, I took a theme "What if plants could talk?" I answered this questions in a form of story.

Shouting Plants

      Once upon a time, some farmers were planting their crops in a field. All happened normally, until a few of months. That time, a farmer who lived near with the field heard singing song like a choir. He ignored it and thought that it was only a problem in his ears.

     A few months passed without that sound, and it was the time to harvest. The farmers harvested them as usual, but a magic happened. When the scissors, axes, and other harvesting tool cut them, they shouted very loud. They shouted, "Hey, you! Don't cut that part! It is my food restoration! Evil you!" Another one shouted "Aaaaaarrggh!!! Aaargh!!! Don't hurt me!!!" Now, they know, that the plants could speak. The farmer who heard a song few months ago be a witness about the talking plants. He heard that they sang alike human, based on their voices and expressions.

    The farmers continued harvesting until it was finished. When the plants were thrown to the box, they shouted because of hurt. And even when they were thrown to hot deck of the truck, they shouted again. That time, there was a big chaos on the field and even on road and streets, because the plants shouted because they hated being at a bumpy, hot, or cold trucks. They grumbled like a human in the jail. They said "Take me out from here! This places is very uncomfortable!"

   At markets and supermarkets, they also kept grumbling. All places containing vegetables, such as fields, trucks, streets, roads, green grocers, markets, supermarkets, restaurants, and even house's kitchens filled with that annoying noise. Even the cook, who cut the vegetables and salad lovers who ate raw vegetables, heard that noise. "My God! You put me in a hot pan? What do you want?", they shouted to cooks in a restaurant.

   When a new 'planting' season started, the farmers still planted new plants. But, that time, the plants didn't grow. They just made a lot of noise without growing. "I don't want to grow... I don't want to give anything for the evil one.", they grumbling as they didn't want to grow. It made a vegetable crisis around the world and made prices of vegetables increasing. This made an even bigger chaos than just noise. "No carrots all around the world. If you want, $ 1000 per kilograms!", they said one another.

   Some scientists searched how to stop that disgusting noise. They developed a medicine which can stop any noise from any living things except from human. Those scientists had tried to stop a cat's noise, a dog's noise, and a bird's noise. Then, that medicine distributed to all farmers around the world.

   Finally, all plants stop talking. They grew again like normal plants, before they could talk. They also as productive as normal plants. After a few months, vegetable price started to decrease. Nowadays, vegetables don't shout anymore. The world become very peaceful now. Everyone is benefited by the scientist's invention.

Chain Story

I have a narrative story that was written by 4 different authors. This story is called chain story. My story's theme is 'Mystery'. I differentiate those authors by writing in in a different font color. Here is my story. I name this story 'A Really Crazy Day' because all of the authors made a lot of crazy situations to me along this story.

A Really Crazy Day

      It was a dark and stormy night when I back home from a store. I had to pass a dark park. Suddenly, I found strong wind and it began to rain. The, I felt that it was an ice rain. I sat on a roofed bench to protect me from the rocky ice. When I sat there, a huge hail hit me in head.

      I woke up in a simple wooden house. A man came out from a room and treated my head. I found out I wasn’t at my neighborhood anymore. I was in a middle-aged village. People use farmer’s clothing and bring their farming tools with them. They work during a hard and stormy night, don’t care about what’s happening. As I walked, the road started to vanish. I realized that I fell from the sky. The village was in the sky!

     Thousands of people were staring at me. I was at my regular café. I walked through the alleyway. I saw a beautiful girl. That girl asked me to come to her. But, she ran. I tried to catch her. But, she’s like a Woman Flash. She ran like a crazy wolf. Suddenly, I lost her.

     “Amen”, I said in my heart but suddenly “Aaaaaaa..!!!!!”, a woman screamed with crazy face looking at me. I jumped and surprised, the I ran to my house. Then, I saw blood in my room. It was my cousin bleeding because he was stabled by a knife. Then my father came in and said, “Yosafat, My money was gone, did you stole it?” Yosafat said, “No”. Father said “You liar”. Yosafat screamed but his cousin and father laughed and said “April Fool”

Narrative Writing

           Narrative writing is technique of writing that we use to make most stories. The product of narrative writing is narrative story, a story that is very usual and long-lasting and have no special elements or special specification. Narrative story has some elements that are identical with other story, not alike mystery stories that has a lot of important and different elements. Narrative story can be a fact (true story) or a fiction (alike folk tales).
Narrative writing produces narrative story, such as:

• Folk tales
• Legends
• Fairy Tales
• Chain (continuing) stories

           Elements of narrative story (narrative writing) are:

1. Characters     

            Character is all of the human, animals, and plants that have a role or do something in a story. Take Cinderella as an example. In that story, Cinderella, his stepmother, the dwarfs, and the prince play his own role. Cinderella as the poor girl, his stepmother as a despicable and cruel woman who press Cinderella, and the dwarfs as a joy and wealth giver and the prince as the dancing partner for Cinderella. All of them can be classified or called as the characters in that story.

    2. Setting

           Setting is where and when the story take place and time. Setting helps the reader to imagine the real situation of a story, to make the it looks happen in a real world near us. A setting will become very real and imaginable if we add audio visual aids, such as sounds, pictures, and videos. Cinderella has a setting in a castle and her house.With them, we can imagine us as one character or player in Cinderella, and we can really understand and enjoy the story.

  3. Plot

          Plot is steps that containing important events in a story. Plot of the story will be very clear if we draw it in a shape of graph-like diagram. This diagram will include introduction, conflicts, climax, and closing or resolution. Introduction is a start of the story. It usually introduces characters and settings of the story. An event could be called as a conflict if it has a big effect to the story and make another big events. Climax is where the story reaches its peak. If in a folk tale, the climax is where we got the lesson, or the success of the characters. Resolution or closing is the end of the story, which explains the character's life after his/her success.

  4. Dialogs

        Dialogs is the element that differentiates narrative story or writing with descriptive story or writing. Dialogs are the real and direct words or sentences that the characters said along the story. This will make the story "live" and happen really. Dialogs make the reader "hear" what the character said. Dialogs written by using quotation marks, such as "(dialogs)", (character) said.
Example: "Wash my clothes quickly!!!", her stepmother said.

Metaphors Inside A Song

As what I said before, we can find metaphors in songs. Here is one example of metaphor inside a song

Title: As The Deer

Song Writer: Martin Nystrom

Lyrics:

As The Deer 

Verse 1
As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after Thee
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship Thee

Chorus:

 You alone are my strength my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship Thee

Verse 2
You're my friend
And You are my brother
Even though You are a King
I love You more than any other
So much more than anything
 

Chorus
 

Verse 3
I want You more than gold or silver
Only You can satisfy
You alone are the real joygiver
And the apple of my eye

 

Metaphors and similes inside this song:

•  As the deer panteth for the water

           Means: The song writer really miss someone (in this case his Lord) as a deer miss river or water

• You alone are my strength and my shield

          Means: The writer feels that his Lord is a strength and my shield, without his Lord he can't do anything.

• You're my friend and You are my brother

         Means: The writer feels that he had a very close relationship with his Lord, alike two friends and two brothers.

• And the apple of my eye

         Means: The writer felt that his Lord provided joy, happiness, and fun, as an apple for our eyes.

Metaphor

Metaphor means compare something with anything else. I gave some examples in my previous posts. Usually, people made a metaphor as what they think about some topics, such as friends, family, school, book, etc. Metaphors always look funny if you take the dictionary meanings, it will not funny if you take other meanings. A group of metaphors can be made into a poem. Here are examples of single metaphor and a poem made from a group of metaphors. We can found metaphors in songs, stories, etc

Single Metaphor
Friends is food coloring in cake mixture.
Food colorings will make everything more interesting and perfect. In my perspective, friends are alike them. Friends will make our life more interesting and more perfect than before.

Poem from a group of metaphor
Friends is coloring in cake mixture.
They will make us more perfect and more interesting.
Friend is a scientific calculator.
 They will help us solving problem, even a difficult and complicated one.
Friends are packets of yeast.
They can influence us to develop and become better.
Friends are Quick Respond Rescuers.
They will help us immediately, even when our family aren’t around