1. Specific Details for Effect ~Mary Ellen Ledbetter
Smiley Face Trick #3
Specific Details for Effect
~Mary Ellen Ledbetter

2. Specific Details for Effect
—Instead of general, vague descriptions, specific sensory (see, hear, smell, touch, taste) details help the reader visualize the person, place, thing, or idea.

3. EXAMPLES:
The brown-eyed child and the white-haired grandfather dance in the silent afternoon. They snap their fingers to a rhythm only those who love can hear (Pat Mora).
Smoke burned my eyes. I couldn’t help shivering as my cold, drenched clothes slowed my pace. Charred remains burned my nostrils while sirens signaled help was on its way to those on the other shore.

4. Now find and write down the Specific Details for Effect in the following excerpts from renowned, published authors.
A boom of thunder startled them, and like leaves before a new hurricane, they tumbled upon each other and ran. Lightning struck ten miles away, five miles away, a mile, a half mile. The sky darkened into a midnight flash (Ray Bradbury).
Gobstoppers, costing a penny each, were enormous, hard, round balls the size of small tomatoes. One Gobstopper would provide an hour’s worth of nonstop sucking, and if you took it out of your mouth every five minutes or so, you would find something fascinating about the way it went from pink to blue to green to yellow ( Roald Dahl).

5. He could hear the occasional thump and swish of its long, heavy tail against the wall. Presently it moved, and he had a partial glimpse of it in a narrow band of moonlight slanting through the window. He saw its solitary gleaming eye, the other lost perhaps in an encounter with another panther (Russel Gordon Carter).

6. A memory about your favorite relative The first day of school
The tables are turned now. Using one the following prompts, write a full-page freewrite (real or fictional) using Smiley-Face Trick #3: Specific Details for Effect.
A memory about your favorite relative
The first day of school
Think of a frightening situation
Or think of your own idea. Just remember to use specific sensory details for effect.