Writing using Sensory Detail

1. Writing using Sensory Detail Good writing uses sensory detail to put the reader in the middle of the action. Good writers make sure the reader feels, sees, smells, tastes and hears what is going on in the story. Good writing doesn’t just happen, it takes practice, like golf, baseball, playing guitar or anything else worth doing.

2. Let’s look at how contemporary novelist Tim O’Brien describes an abstract concept like “war” The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty. For all its horror, you can’t help but gape at the awful majesty of combat. You stare out at tracer rounds unwinding through the dark like brilliant red ribbons. You crouch in ambush as a cool, impassive moon rises over the nighttime paddies. You admire the fluid symmetries of troops on the move, the harmonies of sound and shape and proportion, the great sheets of metal-fire streaming down from a gunship, the illumination rounds, the white phosphorous, the purply black glow of napalm, the rocket’s red glare. It’s not pretty, exactly. It’s astonishing. It fills the eye. It commands you. You hate it, yes, but your eyes do not.

3. Descriptive writing uses all the tools of language to get the reader to “experience” the text. One of the primary tools in descriptive writing is the . . . adjective

4. Let’s look at O’Brien’s passage again and mark all of the adjectives. The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty. For all its horror, you can’t help but gape at the awful majesty of combat. You stare out at tracer rounds unwinding through the dark like brilliant red ribbons. You crouch in ambush as a cool, impassive moon rises over the nighttime paddies. You admire the fluid symmetries of troops on the move, the harmonies of sound and shape and proportion, the great sheets of metal-fire streaming down from a gunship, the illumination rounds, the white phosphorous, the purply black glow of napalm, the rocket’s red glare. It’s not pretty, exactly. It’s astonishing. It fills the eye. It commands you. You hate it, yes, but your eyes do not.

5. And remember, this is a passage that describes an abstract, or “untouchable” concept like war. Imagine that . . . All those adjectives to describe something that is completely intangible.

6. Let’s practice descriptive or “sensory” writing by doing some writing of our own.

7. Exercise 1: Using at least three complete sentences, describe what this looks like. Wait . . . Not this

8. Exercise 1: Describe this scene, you have about five minutes. Be sure to use at least three complete sentences.

9. Here’s an example The storm rolls away, clouds bruised purple and pulling apart like cotton candy. The sun emerges low in the sky, bronzing the earth and casting Saguaro shadows long and dark across the desert floor. Shrouded in stillness, sagebrush glows orange as if sitting by a fireside, valleys begin to dim into darkness. I know, it’s kind of “over the top” but you get the idea. Now it’s your turn

10. Here’s the picture again, you have five minutes to write

11. Exercise 2: Using at least three sentences, describe what this place smells like. You have five minutes.

12. In writing your descriptions, don’t forget to use . . . ADJECTIVES

13. Exercise 3: Using at least three sentences, describe what this would feel like.

14. Exercise 4: Using at least three sentences, describe what this would taste like. You have five minutes.

15. Exercise five: Using at least three sentences, describe what this place sounds like.

16. Everyone has a place where they can go to escape from their problems and daily stresses. For some people, the place is real, such as the theater, the mountains or some beat up ol’ deserted house. For some people that place is imaginary, and exists only in the mind’s eye. Using as much sensory detail as possible, describe that “perfect” place you escape to when things get rough. What does it look like, smell like, taste like, sound like or feel like? Be as expressive in your writing as possible.