How to Create Imagery in Your Writing

Use the five senses!

Imagine With Your Senses!Powerful sensory images will capture the reader's imagination and create more descriptive realism in your writing.

How do I start? Begin by grabbing the reader’s attention and drawing

him into the story. Then look to see that you are using the five senses in order to capture the reader’s imagination.

For example: If a car is approaching a railroad crossing while a train is thundering down the tracks, the reader will be anxious to see what happens next. How fast is the train moving and who is in the car? Is it a vintage blue coupe, a rusty red jalopy, or a gunmetal gray pick-up? A reader who can feel, smell, hear, touch, and almost taste what he imagines is drawn into the story by the sensory description. The reader is then able to put himself into the plot!

Smell, Hear, Taste Your descriptive writing helps the

reader to smell the "musty camphor scent of rotting tree roots, submerged in brackish swamp water" or hear the "deafening sound of absolute silence cracking the still night air with the snap of a frozen limb" or taste the "warm, velvety sweetness of the chocolate morsels melting on his tongue."

Use Strong Vocabulary Writing with sensory descriptions of sound, touch, smell,

sight, and taste requires the use of precise language, and a sophisticated vocabulary. A voice can sound hollow, shrill, frantic, seething, sarcastic, annoyed, etc.. A blanket may feel scratchy, fluffy, silky, coarse, or fuzzy, etc.. Vocabulary really matters! Be sure to find just the right word. Peer conference, use a thesaurus, ask a parent or teacher for assistance.

The subtle difference in meaning between specific words can make writing both sensory and believable. When a reader imagines "pellets of cold rain falling like shards of glass from the sky," he can experience the sensation of chilling picks of ice on the skin's surface. The sensory aspect conveys much more than just a cold rain. It becomes real to your reader.

Create the Setting Use the five senses, a strong vocabulary,

descriptive verbs, and strong modifiers to convey the physical environment to your reader. Your reader will then be able to imagine the scenario through the writer's eyes. Your reader will become involved in the writer's personal experience through these sensory images, as though he is actually there. Vocabulary and language usage are imperative for creating the sensory mood and tone of your story.

Use the Five Senses! Using of the five senses can vastly

improve your writing by creating strong imagery. The appropriate use of strong verbs and modifiers creates colorful descriptions.

In order for you to draw your reader into your world of creation, it is essential that your reader experiences that world just as you do– through all five senses. What usually happens is we can visualize and then we forget to include the other four other types of imagery – touch, sound, smell, and taste.

Just as when writing about a character, writing about a place, is more effective when the focus is on specific, unusual details, rather than general observations.

Take a LookCompare and contrast these two descriptions: “The sun is shining. Many people are sitting

in the courtyard, talking.”

“A woman wearing a beige, hand-knitted cardigan and purple slacks is sitting alone on a bench, smoking. She watches as a teenaged girl, dressed in skin-tight black jeans, pushes a stroller across the sunlit courtyard.”

How Do I Do This? Wherever you are, take a moment to

observe exactly what is happening around you. Every street corner, every park, every supermarket, is a potential goldmine for you-the writer. It is a matter of taking the time to watch and also to listen, feel, smell and taste.

The Sense of Sound and Touch

Sound, is the second essential ingredient to writing about setting successfully. A restaurant is unimaginable without the clinking of cutlery and the chattering of people in the room. As film directors know, background music has a dramatic effect on an individual’s reaction to their surroundings. Try sitting in a public place and listening to contrasting kinds of music on your iPod, from rock to folk to opera, and observe how the music affects your emotional and intellectual response to your setting.

Touch, is the third element important to depicting place. Climate and temperature determine the nature of any environment and contribute to a character’s sensibility and mood. When writing with touch imagery, try to “show” rather than “tell”. In other words, describe what is causing a character’s reaction, rather than just stating the facts.

Take a Look

Compare and contrast these two descriptions:

“It was a windy day.”

“Jack shivered as the wind cut across his skin and cursed James for having left his jacket at school.”

The Sense of Smell and Taste

The sense of smell is crucial to creating a sense of place. Imagine walking around a dairy farm without being able to smell newly-turned soil or cow manure. Describing the associations that a character draws with a particular smell can be effective – what stronger reminder of an ex-girlfriend or boyfriend than a passing whiff of the after-shave or perfume that he/she wore?

Experiment with writing using imagery of taste! Here is a way to have plenty of fun with your writing. What better excuse for eating than conducting research for a story? Would a novel set in Italy be convincing without any mention of pizza or pasta? What kind of character would spend most of his/her time eating in fast food restaurants?

Writing about place in a way that appeals to all five of the senses can be enjoyable. Try spending a day in a particular environment and taking notes regarding what you see, taste, hear, smell and feel.