Sensory Details!
Sensory details include sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. Writers employ the five senses to engage a reader's interest. If you want your writing to jump off the page, then bring your reader into the world you are creating. When describing a past event, try and remember what you saw, heard, touched, smelled, and tasted, then incorporate that into your writing.
Without Sensory Details:
I went to the store and bought some flowers. Then I headed to the meat department. Later I realized I forgot to buy bread.
Now, does this pull you in? Of course it doesn't. There's nothing to bring you into the writer's world. Read this revised version, with the addition of sensory details:
With Sensory Details:
Upon entering the grocery store, I headed directly for the flower department, where I spotted yellow tulips. As I tenderly rested the tulips in my rusty shopping cart, I caught a whiff of minty dried eucalyptus, so I added the fragrant forest green bouquet of eucalyptus to my cart. While heading for the meat department, I smelled the stench of seafood, which made my appetite disappear. I absently grabbed a bloody red hunk of NY Strip and tossed it into my cart. Pushing my creaky shopping cart to the checkout line, I heard an employee announce over the PA that there was a special on shrimp. On the ride home, I realized I had forgotten to buy the crusty wheat bread I like so much.
See how the above passage made the scene come to life? It takes time and effort to incorporate sensory details, but once you get the hang of it, your writing will pop!
Sensory details include sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. Writers employ the five senses to engage a reader's interest. If you want your writing to jump off the page, then bring your reader into the world you are creating. When describing a past event, try and remember what you saw, heard, touched, smelled, and tasted, then incorporate that into your writing.
Without Sensory Details:
I went to the store and bought some flowers. Then I headed to the meat department. Later I realized I forgot to buy bread.
Now, does this pull you in? Of course it doesn't. There's nothing to bring you into the writer's world. Read this revised version, with the addition of sensory details:
With Sensory Details:
Upon entering the grocery store, I headed directly for the flower department, where I spotted yellow tulips. As I tenderly rested the tulips in my rusty shopping cart, I caught a whiff of minty dried eucalyptus, so I added the fragrant forest green bouquet of eucalyptus to my cart. While heading for the meat department, I smelled the stench of seafood, which made my appetite disappear. I absently grabbed a bloody red hunk of NY Strip and tossed it into my cart. Pushing my creaky shopping cart to the checkout line, I heard an employee announce over the PA that there was a special on shrimp. On the ride home, I realized I had forgotten to buy the crusty wheat bread I like so much.
See how the above passage made the scene come to life? It takes time and effort to incorporate sensory details, but once you get the hang of it, your writing will pop!