Using your senses

Have you ever watched a baby explore his or her environment? First, they try and grab, then they stick it in their mouths! They learn quite a bit about the qualities of an object by tasting and feeling it, much to our alarm! Stuffing food up their noses, banging pan lids, splashing water out of the tub, babies glory in living life with all their senses. And we writers can learn a great deal from babies!

Now that we're older, we explore more with our minds and search new worlds in books. But that doesn't mean we've changed--we still use our senses.The trick of a writer is to put down simple words that trick the reader into thinking they actually are using their ears, nose, skin, tongue and eyes. A good description does just that by choosing just the right detail.

Try writing down everything you can think of for a scene using all your senses. Now, choose one detail for each sense. From those details, choose one that shows something very close up, one detail that shows something within about twenty feet and finally, one detail that focuses on the scene as a whole, seen from a slight distance.