Reading and Writing
Writing about a picture
Describe a picture in an ordered paragraph — what is there, what is happening, and where each part sits.
Given a picture and asked to write about it, most people list things: a tree, a bench, a boy, a kite. A list is not a composition. What turns it into one is order — deciding where the reader's eye should go first, and telling them what is happening, not only what is there.
Three places in a picture
The background is what lies farthest away, behind everything else. The middle is where most of the picture usually happens. The foreground is what is nearest to you, at the bottom of the picture.
Naming is not describing
"a door" names it. "a green door with its paint peeling" describes it. Every noun you write can carry an adjective or a phrase telling the reader where it is.
Write in the present
A picture is not something that happened; it is something you are looking at. So: a woman is selling flowers — not "a woman sold flowers". Keep every sentence in the same tense.
Have a play
Every part of this picture has a name. Find out what each one is called before you write about any of it — six parts, in any order, and there is nothing here to get right.
Tap any part of the picture.
Worked example
Turn "a gate" into a sentence worth reading.
Start with what it is: a gate.
A bare noun. True, and it tells the reader almost nothing.
Try it together
Build one sentence about the picture.
Three questions, and the sentence assembles itself.
1.The kite is high above the field; the pond is at the bottom of the picture, nearest you. Which of the two is in the foreground?
Have a go
Which of these would make the best opening sentence for writing about the park picture?
Ready to practise?
Eight questions on what you have just read. Nothing is timed, and you can play as many times as you like.