Descriptive Composition: Question 10
Syllabus W1, W2
The passage below is meant to be a pure description of a derelict greenhouse, but one sentence slips into narrative by introducing a character who performs a sequence of actions with a clear beginning, middle and end.
"The greenhouse stood at the far end of the garden, its glass panes furred with algae and cracked in three long fractures across the roof. Vines had pushed up through gaps in the paving and wound themselves around a rusted iron frame that no longer held any plants. A fox slipped in through a broken pane, sniffed at a shattered plant pot, then padded quickly back out into the evening, leaving a faint trail through the dust. Every surface was coated in a fine grey film, undisturbed except where light fell in broken shafts through the missing glass."
(a) Identify which sentence slips from description into narrative, and explain in one sentence why. [3]
(b) Rewrite that sentence so that it remains purely descriptive detail about the greenhouse, with no sequence of action performed by a character. [7]
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Worked solution
Assessment focus
This tests genre awareness within description: recognising the specific marker of narrative (a character completing a sequence of actions with a beginning, middle and end) as distinct from dynamic but static or ongoing descriptive detail, and being able to redraft it back into pure description without losing vividness.
Part (a): Identifying the slip
The third sentence is the slip into narrative: “A fox slipped in through a broken pane, sniffed at a shattered plant pot, then padded quickly back out into the evening, leaving a faint trail through the dust.” This differs from the surrounding sentences because it follows a single character (the fox) through a complete sequence of events (entering, investigating, leaving) which is the defining shape of narrative, even though no plot beyond this moment is developed.
Part (b): Model rewrite
Near the broken pane, a faint trail of disturbed dust crossed the floor toward a shattered plant pot, the only mark on an otherwise undisturbed grey film. Evidence, perhaps, of something that had passed through and gone.
Why this works
The rewrite keeps the trace of the fox’s presence (which contributes usefully to the scene’s sense of quiet abandonment) without narrating the fox’s actions as a sequence of events. “Evidence… of something that had passed through and gone” implies a story without telling it, converting a narrative moment into a single static observation, consistent with the descriptive, non-narrative register of the rest of the passage.
Common pitfalls specific to this task
- Selecting the second sentence (“Vines had pushed up…”) for part (a), mistaking an ongoing, static condition (the vines have grown, and remain grown) for a narrative sequence, when nothing here has a beginning, middle and end.
- In part (b), replacing the fox with “a cat that crept in, looked around, and slipped back out”, this still narrates a sequence of actions and repeats the original problem in a new guise.