Consider:

“The house was scary.”

This tells the reader very little.

A more descriptive version might communicate what makes the house frightening:

“The abandoned house groaned in the wind, its broken windows staring into the darkness.”

The improvement comes from specific sensory and visual details, not simply from using longer words.

Encourage students to think about the five senses:

Sight | Sound | Smell | Touch | Taste

They can also describe movement, facial expressions, weather, body language and atmosphere.

Instead of:

“She was nervous.”

Try showing the emotion:

“Her fingers tightened around the letter as she stared at the unopened door.”

This technique is often called showing rather than telling.

However, descriptive writing should remain purposeful. Adding adjectives to every noun can make writing heavy and repetitive.

Students should ask:

What does the reader need to notice?

Choose a few strong details and develop them.

A useful editing technique is to underline vague words such as:

nice, bad, good, big, small, scary, happy, sad

Then replace some with precise descriptions where appropriate.

The goal is not maximum description. It is deliberate description.

Strong narrative writing allows the reader to imagine the scene, understand the character and experience the emotion without requiring the writer to explain everything directly.