Making Sense of Your Writing–Part 4

May 21, 2008 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Writing Tip 

Unlike other senses, the sense of feeling provides a greater latitude of sensations and an array of emotions. Feeling can be confined to a single place on the body like the pain of a pin prick on your finger or the overall feeling of being cold walking on a bitter, winter day. As a writer this range of values allows you to pinpoint sensations and their associated emotions. Take skinning your knee. I hate that. The thought of it makes me cringe. I immediately associate it with a bad fall off a bike as a kid. Invoking that feeling in writing would certain charge me with that same emotion.

Of course, feeling don’t have to confined to what is perceived within, but can move to the outside. The feeling of mink against my skin. Oh, I like that, but not from a whole lot of experience, but rather harking back to my days as a naturalist when I had fur samples to use for presentations. Its soft feeling is unmistakable. Or take the feeling of sandpaper, coarse and harsh against your skin, that delicate balance of being a sensation or pain. Using these supercharged feelings is effective because they are universal. No matter what your reader’s background, everyone has skinned a knee at some point in their life that you can capitalize on. But, wait, there’s more.

Emotional feelings are powerful–the feeling a being alone in a strange place, the feeling of loss, the fear of heights. That latter is especially strong with me. Just in the last few years, I’ve become downright frightened of heights. No more will you see me climbing the steps up to that tower no matter how fantastic the view. Again, the universal feelings enhance your writing by drawing you and your reader closer by virtue of your mutual feelings. Use them. Feel them.

Making Sense of Your Writing Part 4

Photo by Salim Virji

Making Sense of Your Writing Part 4

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Making Sense of Your Writing–Part 3

May 13, 2008 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Writing Tip 

When a writer invokes the sense of hearing in his writing, powerful images, again some maybe unrelated to the work but strong just the same, can be created in the reader’s mind.  Word choice can bring this to the forefront.

  • "I’ll do it," he mumbled.
  • "I’ll do it," he shouted.
  • "I’ll do it," he volunteered.

What is said is the same, but a simple choice of word makes the reader hear something very different, and in turn, gives the reader a clearer picture of character.  Let’s take this a step further and use the reader’s past to add dimension to our characters.

I’m sure we all have those songs in our memory, the ones that take us back to special moments in the past.  Perhaps it was the feeling of being free and finally on your own.  Perhaps a song recalls a loved one or a lost love.  While not as closely tied physically as smell, hearing and auditory memories are powerful tools a writer can utilize.  Here’s what I’d call a good example for me.

I love that song.  It takes me back to a time in my life I felt carefree and able to do anything.  I associate it with driving the back roads on a summer day, the windows open and feeling so free.  The image is very real for me.  Invoking the sense of hearing certainly does not have to be confined to a sound an animal makes, or the way someone expresses themselves, or the sound a car makes backfiring.  The sense of hearing can be invoked by words, lyrics, music–anything that a reader can make an association.

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