Description is any type of communication that aims to make vivid a place, object, person, group, or other physical entity.^[1] It is one of four rhetorical modes (also known as modes of discourse), along with exposition, argumentation, and narration.^[2]

Fiction writing specifically has modes such as action, exposition, description, dialogue, summary, and transition.^[3] Author Peter Selgin refers to methods, including action, dialogue, thoughts, summary, scenes, and description.^[4]

Description is the mode for transmitting a mental image of the particulars of a story. Together with dialogue, narration, exposition, and summarization, it is one of the most widely recognized of the fiction-writing modes. As stated in Writing from A to Z, edited by Kirk Polking, it is more than the amassing of details; it is bringing something to life by carefully choosing and arranging words and phrases to produce the desired effect.^[5]

A purple patch is an over-written passage in which the writer has strained too hard to achieve an impressive effect, by elaborate figures or other means. The phrase (Latin: "purpureus pannus") was first used by the Roman poet Horace in his Ars Poetica (c. 20 BC) to denote an irrelevant and excessively ornate passage; the sense of irrelevance is normally absent in modern usage, although such passages are usually incongruous. By extension, purple prose is lavishly figurative, rhythmic, or otherwise overwrought.^[6]

In philosophy, the nature of description has been an important question since Bertrand Russell's classical texts.^[7]

• Baldick, Chris (2004), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-860883-7
• Crews, Frederick (1977), The Random House Handbook (2nd ed.), New York: Random House, ISBN 0-394-31211-2
• Marshall, Evan (1998). The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books. pp. 143–165. ISBN 1-58297-062-9.
• Morrell, Jessica Page (2006). Between the Lines: Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books. p. 127. ISBN 978-1-58297-393-7.
• Ogilvie, Brian W. (2006). The science of describing: Natural history in renaissance Europe. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226620875.
• Polking, Kirk (1990). Writing A to Z. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books. ISBN 0-89879-435-8.
• Rozakis, Laurie (2003). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Grammar and Style, 2nd Edition. Alpha. ISBN 978-1-59257-115-4
• Selgin, Peter (2007). By Cunning & Craft: Sound Advice and Practical Wisdom for fiction writers. Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-58297-491-0.