Descriptive composition: from sensory list to controlling idea
A candidate chooses the descriptive option: 'Describe a busy market at dawn.' They have 40 minutes left in a 50-minute section and a 400–500 word limit. Their plan reads: 'Sight: fruit, people. Sound: shouting. Smell: fish. End: sun rises.' The opening sentence of their draft is: 'The market was very busy. There were many people. The sun was rising.' They are worried about 'using too many adjectives' and have started adding phrases such as 'the vibrant, colourful, noisy, crowded market'. They have written 120 words and have not decided on a final image, although they know the piece should end with the market fully awake. Their teacher has warned against 'purple prose' but also against a bare list. The examiner rewards controlled descriptive writing, structural shape and precise sensory detail, not a list of features.
1. Diagnose the planning problem and explain how a controlling idea would improve the piece.
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The plan is a sensory list, not a structure. It has four categories but no controlling idea, so the piece will drift from sight to sound to smell and end with a sunrise that has no relation to the market's life. A controlling idea-for example, 'the market is a machine that runs on human voices' or 'dawn is the moment when the market pretends to be calm'-would allow the candidate to select details rather than pile them up. The opening also tells rather than shows: 'very busy', 'many people', 'the sun was rising' are generic labels. The adjective stacking ('vibrant, colourful, noisy, crowded') is a symptom of the same problem: the writer is trying to compensate for a missing angle.
2. Rewrite the opening 60–80 words to show rather than tell, avoiding adjective stacking.
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Before the sun clears the rooftops, the market is already a machine of voices. A woman in a blue apron slaps wet fish onto cracked ice; the sound is a flat, stubborn applause. Somewhere behind her, a man argues with a crate of oranges, not angry, just awake. The air smells of diesel and cut stems. A boy sleeps on a stack of empty sacks, one arm dangling, while the stalls assemble themselves around him. (75 words)
3. Suggest a structural shape for the whole piece and a final image that would give it unity.
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Shape: begin in close-up with one stall and one sound; widen to the whole market; then narrow again to a single human detail that echoes the opening. The controlling idea 'the market is a machine of voices' can be tested at the end: the machine either stops or changes gear. A final image could be the boy waking and taking his place behind a stall, so the market's continuity is shown rather than stated. Avoid ending on 'the sun rose' unless the sunrise is connected to the controlling idea-for example, the light reaching the fish ice and making it look like a sheet of metal.