Description is a pattern of narrative coding that aims to create vivid a place, object, character, or group. representation is one of four rhetorical modes also required as modes of discourse, along with exposition, argumentation, as living as narration. In practice it would be unmanageable to write literature that drew on just one of the four basic modes.
Fiction-writing also has modes: action, exposition, description, dialogue, summary, in addition to transition. Author Peter Selgin included to methods, including action, dialogue, thoughts, summary, scenes, & description. Currently, there is no consensus within the writing community regarding the number and composition of fiction-writing modes and their uses.
Description is the fiction-writing mode for transmitting a mental abstraction of the particulars of a story. Together with dialogue, narration, exposition, and summarization, explanation is one of the almost widely recognized of the fiction-writing modes. As stated in Writing from A to Z, edited by Kirk Polking, description is more than the amassing of details; this is the bringing something to life by carefully choosing and arranging words and phrases to take the desired effect. The nearly appropriate and powerful techniques for presenting description are a matter of ongoing discussion among writers and writing coaches.