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Make sure to choose a meaningful person, place, or thing. Before you begin your
paragraph, you have to be sure to pick something that is worth describing. If you want to
describe a character, make sure the person is interesting in some way. If you want to
describe an object, make sure it has some deeper meaning beyond itself so you have
enough to write about. If you pick a place, make sure you can describe it in a unique
way that can capture a reader's attention.
 For example, in the opening pages of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield
describes a baseball mitt. The mitt itself is not that remarkable, but he describes it in a
way that fills it with meaning because it used to belong to his deceased brother. Though
not every object you describe needs an elaborate backstory, if it has some meaning
behind it, this can help the description carry weight.
 If you want to pick a place, don't just pick any old spot at a beach, but one that is
meaningful to you -- or, if you're writing fiction, to one of your characters -- in some way.
This can add a layer of depth to the place in question.
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Introduce the person, place, or thing you are describing. If you want to get the
reader's attention, then you should let him or her know what you're describing as soon
as possible instead of leaving them guessing. Here is an example of some opening
lines in a descriptive paragraph:
 Natasha's basement was our sanctuary. I return to it in my best dreams and wake up
feeling like I could die happy.
 These opening sentences introduce the subject that is being described, the basement of
the narrator's friend. They make it clear that this place is very important to the narrator.
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Engage your reader's sense of sight. You can start with what the reader can see and
appeal to his or her sense of sight to help introduce the object. Since sight is the most
helpful sense, any good descriptive paragraph must first discuss what the writer wants
the reader to visualize. Using strong adjectives to illustrate your scene, moment,
experience or item to the reader will help provide a visual picture in your reader's mind.
Keep in mind that, while adjectives can help convey a sense of the subject, overusing
them can lead to boring, overwrought writing. Here's an example of the opening of a
descriptive paragraph:
  Even today I could paint a perfect picture of it, right up to the last piece of neglected
pizza crust festering under the ping-pong table.
 Immediately, the reader is given a visual description of some things in the basement:
old pizza crust and a ping-pong table. The reader is given a sense of a messy, chaotic
place.
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Describe smells and tastes if you can. Think about how you can describe the topic,
scene, or moment to the reader in terms of how it smells and tastes. The best
descriptive paragraphs make the reader feel as if he or she were actually experiencing
 the thing he or she was reading about, not just reading about it. Include a sentence or
two about how your topic smells and use a few poignant adjectives to relay the smell of
it to the reader. "It tastes good" is not going to provide a specific experience for your
reader. However, "It tastes like Grandma's apple pie when it's fresh and still bubbling
around the edges - crunchy, flavorful and sweet" helps describe the distinct flavor of
your item. Of course, not everything you describe will have a relevant taste or smell; if it
does, though, it can help to include it. Here's the next part of our paragraph:
 The spilled root beer and duck sauce shining over the nappy brown carpet indicated
nights of giggles and prank calls, times when we were far too occupied to consider the
absurd possibility of cleaning up. Popcorn got crushed into the carpet and was never
quite cleaned up. You could smell this mixture of sweetness and butter even when you
stood on the front porch.
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Describe how the moment or item feels. As you continue writing your paragraph,
write a sentence or two about how the experience feels. What does it remind you of as
you imagine yourself running your hand along its surface, or the tingling feeling you feel
run down your back? How are you reacting to the moment? Again, use descriptive
adjectives to describe how the moment feels. Avoid using general statements like "it
feels nice", which isn't descriptive at all. Opt for specific, definitive examples that relay
the feeling of something to the reader. If you're describing how the object or item feels
for a certain character, this can also give readers a sense of what it was like. Continuing
on:
  Nothing ever got erased, either. It was like memory. With enough time and will power,
you could find almost anything down there. Katie had once recovered her third grade
Tamagotchi from the storage closet. Another time, Nora had unearthed a disposable
camera with undeveloped pictures I had taken during our fourth grade trip to Ellis Island.
 Note that, in the above sentences, the narrator is showing that the basement that is
being described was never cleaned up, while also using these details to show that the
basement is important to her because it serves as a time capsule of her childhood. This
is both conveying the feeling of being in the basement and also uses figurative
language to add a deeper meaning to the place.
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Describe how your subject sounds. What can you hear? Is there a deafening
silence? If there is a buzzing sound, avoid simply saying "All of a sudden I heard a loud
buzzing sound", rather "I jerked as all of the sudden I heard an undefinable buzzing
sound, so loud I put my hands over my face and ears. I assumed it was the fire alarm..."
and the reader would be able to relate with the "fire alarm" description, as most people
have experienced the startling noise of a fire alarm. Here is how the sounds are
described in our paragraph:
 The television in the basement was always on, but no one ever seemed to watch it. We
were too busy laughing over our latest stupid game of Rummikub, prank calling our
crushes, or listening for the doorbell that told us the pizza was here.
 Here, the narrator uses the sounds in the basement to help give a sense of what it was
like to actually be there, and to indirectly tell the reader what was commonly done there.
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Make unique observations. When you're describing something, give your readers an
image, feeling, smell, or sight that they wouldn't normally expect. If you're describing a
lawyer, for example, don't just tell the readers things that they would expect to hear
about him, like that he wears a suit and works too much; tell them about his secret love
for his pet iguanas. Make sure to keep your descriptions sounding fresh and surprising.
Continuing on with our paragraph:
 The silver Christmas garland around the banisters was pretty much a permanent fixture;
the same birthday steamers celebrated three shoe-sizes of birthdays, eventually lost
their color, and seemed to peel off the walls on their own accord.
  This sentence makes it sound as if the basement has a life and will of its own.
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Include some figurative language. Using other effective writing techniques to top off
your paragraph will make it all that more appealing and evocative. If you include all
these elements in your paragraph, your reader will be able to fully experience and
appreciate your writing. You can describe a person, place, or thing while using both
literal language and speaking on the level of metaphor or simile to fully give a person a
sense of the thing that is being described. Here is some figurative language:
  As it was, with a net-less ping-pong table and a set of bare mattresses facing the TV,
the basement looked more like the Fiona Apple "Criminal" video than a place to raise
your children.
 This sentence uses simile to compare the basement to a notorious music video, adding
an extra layer of meaning.
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Wrap it up. Though you don't need to have a neat concluding sentence for this creative
paragraph (unless it is part of an assignment for school), you'll need to end the
paragraph in some way to remind readers of what you had described and to leave a
 lasting idea of the person, place, or thing in their minds. Here's how this paragraph
ends:
 And that was exactly why three extra toothbrushes made their way to the downstairs
bathroom. All of us could have lived and died there.
 The second to last line, while it doesn't say that the other girls used to spend all of their
time there explicitly, uses the images of the extra toothbrushes to show that this
basement was once a sanctuary for the young girls, which reminds the reader of the
first sentence. These sentences show that the basement was incredibly important to the
girls who "grew up" there without explicitly saying so.