When writers describe a scene in fiction, they most often use the sense of sight, with some sound thrown in. But people’s senses include much more than that, and touch, taste, and smell should not be forgotten.
Descriptive Writing Exercise: Include All Five Senses
For the preliminary exercise, choose a place well-known to you. Write a one- or two-paragraph description of the place using your normal style and types of detail. This is the baseline.
Writing Exercise Part 1: Sight
Make a list of everything that can be seen in the setting. Don’t worry about sentences, or choosing the most important. Remember to include color, shape, relative size, etc.
Writing Exercise Part 2: Sound
Make a list of everything that can be heard. Birds, conversations, shouting, pans clattering, train whistles, car engines, brakes squealing – everything. Then imagine the quiet sounds: papers or leaves rustling, an animal scurrying, whispers, the hum of power lines. What would a person be able to hear if the louder noises vanished?
Writing Exercise Part 3: Touch
What do things feel like? Go back to the list of what can be seen, and describe the texture of items. Since a reader won’t know how soft is soft, this is the place to use similes. Ultimately the similes should come from the character’s point of view, but for now, use whatever comes to mind.
After describing the touch of what can be seen, don’t forget the intangibles. The heat or cold, the breeze, hair against the face, etc.
Writing Exercise Part 4: Smell
The sense of smell is very powerful, but is often forgotten in fiction. It only takes a phrase in the midst of a descriptive paragraph to add a smell that will make the scene more vivid.
With closed eyes, picture the setting. Now shift focus from what can be seen. What smells are there? Pleasant? Nasty? Separate them out to see where they come from, then make a list. Once the obvious smells are listed – cooking oil, garbage, diapers, roses, whatever – check the written list of things that can be seen. What is there that would have a smell, even if slight? Describe it in the list.
Writing Exercise Part 5: Taste
Taste is often left out unless the character is eating something. But taste is tied directly to smell. Using the list of smells as a reference, write down the taste these things would leave in a character’s mouth. Sweet? Bitter? Oily? Metallic? Sour?
Writing Exercise Conclusion: Putting It All Together
With lists in hand, revisit the setting chosen for the preliminary paragraphs. Choose a character and re-write the description from his or her point of view, using all five senses. Long stretches of description in fiction can overwhelm readers, so decide which items to include depending on which things are important to the character.
The new description is still likely to be mostly sight, but that’s normal. Having equal amounts of sight and taste would seem overblown to readers. But when smell, taste, touch, and sound are combined with sight, the results can be powerful.
Jennifer Jensen - Jennifer Jensen is an Indiana writer just returned from a lovely few years in County Cork, Ireland. She has been the Feature Writer for ...
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