In his epic poem "A Season in Hell," the surly French poet Arthur Rimbaud proposes that the Devil likes writing that lacks "descriptive" qualities. Rimbaud then makes a stand in favor of descriptive writing by offering "these hideous pages from [his] notes of the damned." The author would not go so far as to say that nondescriptive writing is evil in any religious or nonreligious sense, but he would agree that writing that fails to generate strong images or provoke significant feelings provides little incentive to be considered as literary. Writing teachers from all disciplines and at all levels have been struggling with the issue of" show not tell" for centuries. The author cannot comment on how his colleagues encourage students to cast out this demon, but he can definitely remark on his own approach in introductory creative-writing courses. In this article, the author discusses how to get undergraduates to avoid vague words and embrace description in their writing.