Imagery is a usually figurative description that allows the reader to create a vivid mental image. Below are a few short examples of strong descriptive writing in which the imagery is strong.
An exerpt from Shadowmancer by GP Taylor
The Dark Storm
A bright silver moon shone down on a calm sea. In the distance the silhouette of the Friendship, a collier brig, could be seen picked out against the waves. The sails of the ship looked like the flags of a small army preparing for war.
The brilliance of the full moon penetrated the darkest depths of the wood that gripped the tops of the cliffs. Beadle, a small, darkly clad figure in a frock coat and knee boots stumbled along, carrying a long black leather case, timidly following a tall, confident man with long flowing white hair - Demurral.
An excerpt from George Orwell's “Shooting an Elephant”
I shot the elephant
When I pulled the trigger, I did not hear the bang or feel the kick –one never does when a shot goes home – but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, a mysterious, terrible change had come over the elephant. He neither stirred nor fell, but every line of his body had altered. He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralysed him without knocking him down. At last, after what seemed a long time – it might have been five seconds, I dare say – he sagged flabbily to his knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. One could have imagined him thousands of years old. I fired again into the same spot. At the second shot, he did not collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright, with legs sagging and head drooping. I fired a third time. That was the shot that did for him. You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant of strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay.
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