Creative Use of the Senses in Your Writing

Getting creative to wow your reader

Give Your Readers Magic

We all know that when we utilize the senses in our writing, it makes for a more personal, visual, exciting experience for the reader. The “Show don’t tell” rule is a perfect example of this important aspect of writing.

As a poet and creative writer, I have been asking my senses to work overtime for me when I write — and you should do this too. It is more than a matter of explaining, describing, or “fleshing out” a scene. I challenge you to press this issue in your writing and try something new. The art of combining senses is where the gold really lies — where the magic happens.

The Five Senses

Humans have five major senses, as most of us have learned throughout our lives: sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing, but how we perceive all of those things in inherently unique. Poets and creative writers press into these gray areas and maximize them.

Synesthesia is a condition in which one sense (for example, hearing) is simultaneously perceived as if by one or more additional senses such as sight. Another form of synesthesia joins objects such as letters, shapes, numbers or people’s names with a sensory perception such as smell, color or flavor. The word synesthesia comes from two Greek words, syn (together) and aisthesis (perception). Therefore, synesthesia literally means “joined perception.” — Washington EDU

This disorder is one that I know little of, but have at least a little familiarity — as it seems to be the inspiration of a creative writing exercise that I developed some years ago and like to teach with regards to writing poetry. The technique is called “Combined Senses Magic.”

Combined Senses Magic

This activity is simple, weird, and will challenge your writing on a sensory depth-perception level unlike any other exercise I have tried. (It is a combination of things I have learned in creative writing classes in two different colleges and of my many years of writing poetry.)

Creative writing requires you to show something new, interesting, baffling, thought-provoking — you get the picture — to your reader. To keep their interest, you must engage more than their eyes perusing words on a page.

Two exercises to help you to involve the senses in your writing:

Five Senses Exercise. (You’ll need your favorite note-taking method with you.)

Find a place to sit that you do NOT normally utilize and go there, preferably alone, with at least 10–30 minutes to just loiter with your thoughts.

You are going to very simply title the page with your location, list the five senses with plenty of room to write — or work on one or two of them that you’d like to improve utilizing in your writing, and explore them.

Example:

The Mall

Sight —

Sound —

Taste —

Hearing —

Smell —

Spend some time on each sense and note ANY observation you can with regard to those senses. Describe things you see to as much detail as you can. Practice this in different locations until describing what you “feel” through all five of your senses becomes easy, fluent, masterful.

Creative writing requires you to show something new, interesting, baffling, thought-provoking — you get the picture — to your reader. To keep their interest, you must engage more than their eyes perusing words on a page.

Then, Practice “Combined Senses Magic”

Combined Senses Magic exercise. (You’ll need your favorite note-taking method with you.)

Find a place to sit that you do NOT normally utilize and go there, preferably alone, with at least 10–30 minutes to just loiter with your thoughts.

Choose 2 senses.

My favorites to combine are SOUND as the primary, SIGHT as the secondary.

Again, find a location (I prefer outside locations), close your eyes and zero in on a sound. Here’s where suspension of reality comes in — envision the sound. Not the object making the sound but the actual sound. What color is it? Is it heavy? How does it move through the air? Or is it a crawling sound that moves along the ground? Personify this sound or give it a new face. Follow where your creative imagination takes you! Make notes of these thoughts and observations.

This is where the magic of creativity happens: when you ask your senses to do something that challenges the reality status quo.

Try the same exercise using Smell as the primary and SIGHT as the secondary — envision the smell. Not the object from whence the smell originates but the actual smell. What color is it? Is it heavy? How does it move through the air or along the ground? Personify this smell or give it a new face. Is it a large smell or a small one? What emotion is this smell? Very interesting, right!

Make notes of anything that comes to mind when you are practicing this, even if it is two-word thoughts and partial sentences. Keep all of your notes as these are great springboards for creative writing.

These exercises may feel awkward, silly, strange — but when you press your creativity like this you are pressing your writing in new directions. The better you become at describing with your senses and combining sensory experience in challenging ways, the more likely your reader will be taken on a sensory journey and return for more.

Vivid imagery cannot be vivid without involving the senses

— and more than one of them. Consider juxtaposed sensory observations and train yourself to look for these moments of friction. Practice these exercises when you feel the need to take your creativity to the next level.

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Christina M. Ward is a freelance writer in cannabis, wellness, and clean beauty. Christina’s professional work has been featured in Today’s Health Science, LA Weekly, Village Voice, Men’s Journal, and OK! Magazine, among others.

Christina also writes on personal journey, productivity, and relationship topics for Medium publications like this one.

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