Touching on the Senses

One of the great weaknesses in my writing is remembering to use all the senses to pull readers into my story. And the five senses? Sight, smell, taste, touch, and hear. Since I write mostly flash, I usually hit sight and hear but the others fall by the wayside. Not good if you're writing longer stories which is my goal this year.

In his book "Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing", David Morrell quotes writer John Barth about using the senses in writing. "When describing something, it's important to 'keep the senses operating.' A visual detail should be intersected with one from the other senses, auditory, for instance, so that the reader will be engaged in the scene. 'This procedure may be compared to the way surveyors and navigators determine their positions by two or more compass bearings, a process known as triangulation.'"

Sounds easy enough, doesn't it? But remembering to do it is a whole other story. Just another thing to add the long rewrite list. And sometimes you wonder, why bother? If the reader can see it in their mind, why bother adding all the other stuff? Seeing is everything, right?

And then this morning I read these two sentences written by Chandler McGrew in his book "Cold Heart".

"And then they were abruptly trapped in a cave that stank of alcohol and cigarettes and overripe hormones mixed with air-conditioning and money. Tires churned hot asphalt and fan belts screeched; the cruiser dropped again and shuddered like a dog, shaking off a cold bath."

I finished reading that paragraph and just went "WOW". Would you have described a Brinks truck shoving a police cruiser into a strip joint like that? Me neither.

For me that paragraph put using all the senses into perspective.

Those two sentences are on page six of the book, you can bet your sweet ass I'm looking forward to being swallowed alive into the pages of this book.

How about you? Read any good paragraphs that really showed you how to get the writing right?