Using Adjectives in all the Right Places

"It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady she was: dark, like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face and voice, and with very heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her large nose, as if, being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from wearing whiskers, she had carried them to that account. She brought with her two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials on the lids in hard brass nails. When she paid the coachman she took her money out of a hard steel purse, and she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon her arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had never, at that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was."

                                                                           ~ from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens is a master of description. From just this one paragraph, we readers learn a lot about Miss Murdstone, even though she hasn't spoken a word or even looked at the protagonist.

Writing:

Read the paragraph again and then, in your journal, do the following:

1). Make two lists of adjectives Dicken's uses: one list describing Miss Murdstone herself and the second describing her possessions.

2) The protagonist calls her a “metallic” lady. Circle all the adjectives you’ve listed that refer to “metallic".

3) Choose a descriptive word that captures a personality (as Dickens did with "metallic"). Create a list of adjectives you could use in writing about that personality.

4) Turn the personality into a character and write a short descriptive paragraph showing us that character.

Editing:

Go back to your flash fiction. Highlight all the adjectives you used (yes, you may get someone else in the class to help you find them all).

What kind of adjectives are most of them (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste)?

Where can you add to the character descriptions in your flash fiction to give the reader a clearer idea of the character's personality?