Tips: How To Use The Five Senses in Your Writing

Explaining the sensory nuances of all five senses can help you produce descriptions that will stick with your reader and boost your writing abilities.

The ability to describe anything is fundamental to every writer’s craft. The ability to vividly describe settings, characters, and events is crucial to the success of any narrative piece, whether it is a short story, poem, or lengthy essay. However, when they first start out, many authors make the mistake of focusing only on visual details while describing a setting. As a species, we depend heavily on our senses to take in and make sense of the world around us. However, you’re missing out on using four of your five senses when you rely just on sight to write.

How To Write With Sight

It’s OK to provide visual details. In fact, sight may be more crucial than any other sense when it comes to elaborating on a subject via description. Unlike a photographer, a writer must select which elements to highlight and decide which sequence would be most efficient in conveying those facts to the reader. Because of this, you should be selective about the information you emphasize. You might emphasize the colors of the water and the brickwork, but are they truly the aspects you want to highlight?

Writing Tip: Indirect elaboration is useful, so keep that in mind. Either “the sun is brilliant” or “the light from the sun makes the glass windows to glow solid white” would work to indicate the intensity of the sunlight.

How To Write With Taste

Writing about taste is notoriously challenging, yet it’s also one of the most potent senses. It’s difficult to explain since, for one thing, everyone has their own idea of what a fresh apple tastes like. Could it be the little tanginess or snap of acidity that cuts through the sweetness? Also, maybe it’s not a fresh apple, and that’s why it tastes so bad.

When to use flavor imagery is another challenge. Taste, like scent, is very individual and evocative; write sparingly to avoid overwhelming the reader.

Writing Tip: Intentionally combining sensory words is a frequent writing strategy. You may use the word “bright” to describe the lemon’s tangy flavor (a visual description) or “a whimper” to describe the setting sun (an auditory description).

How To Write With Touch

The sensation of touch is often disregarded. Every moment of your life is spent touching something, even if it’s only your clothing. (Whether or not you have any clothing on!) Depending on the temperature and humidity, breathing in various types of air may result in a wide range of distinct physiological responses.

Writing Tip: Although texture plays a significant role in the tactile experience, the sensation of touch encompasses much more. Besides external stimuli, such as heat, pain, and pleasure, the sense of touch may also convey inner experiences.

How To Write With Smell

Good writers may benefit from the strong association between scent and memory. The simple act of entering your grandmother’s home and being greeted by the familiar aroma of her cooking (or her floral perfume) may generate strong feelings. The unpleasant odor of motor oil or the sour, vinegary odor of spoiled milk might evoke similar responses in a reader.

Writing Tip: Perfume and cologne work the same way; a little goes a long way. The reader should not be inundated with scent descriptions, but a few well-placed ones may leave a lasting impression.

How To Write With Sound

You can set the tone of a scene with just the right sound effects. Take a look at these two wooded settings; You may talk about how many little birds are tweeting, how tiny creatures are rustling through the leaves, or how the wind is whispering through the trees. This results in a unique and calming ambiance, with a mystical touch. Now think of a different collection of woodland noises. A distant howl of an unknown animal may be heard. A creaking old limb can be heard closer to you, and then a twig cracks. The wind sounds like it’s moaning when you listen to it. Using distinct sensory language, two accounts of the same forest might evoke quite different feelings from the reader.

Writing Tip: The plop of a frog falling into a pond, the clink of champagne glasses, the crackling of dry wood on a hot fire, and the whoosh of a speeding automobile are all examples of onomatopoeia that may help you convey the sound of a situation. However, onomatopoeia should be used cautiously unless a purposefully corny comic book impression is desired.