“Description begins in the writer’s imagination but should finish in the reader’s.”
― Stephen King
I’m sure that by now you’re tired of hearing the word ‘detail’. At some point it becomes one of those words that you start to say too many times in your head and then start to wonder if it even is a word. (Why are there tails in details?) But I couldn’t move on without doing an essay on sensory details.
Last week we talked about physical details, which are separate from body details. Body details focus only on your character’s (you guessed it) body, whereas physical details bring in the setting around the character.
But now it’s time to talk about sensory details, and they get their own essay because they are different than all the rest of the kinds. In almost every book I edit I’m always leaving happy little notes in Word comments about how I need more sensory details. This means the obvious: smell, taste, touch, sight, or sound. Writers are often very strong on one or even two, but rarely do they hit all five, unless they are really trying. But it’s worth doing, because those are the things that bring the readers into the scenes, fully and completely.
This is because one thing that every good developmental editor will tell you is that you need at least three sensory details a page. (Or about one every ten lines.) The reason why is the same as we talked about for physical details: they are what immerse the readers in the scene. Physical details, like your character spinning around in her chair, help put readers in the setting of the story. If your character is having a conversation while spinning in a chair then the readers can see the scene: they know at least that there’s the character, the room, and the chair.
But sensory details make the reader feel the story. These are things like the roughness of the fabric underneath your character as she spins and the sharpness of the desk edge when it hits her elbow. The way she spins a little too quickly and the chair starts to tilt, making her feel like she’s going to fall. The flat smack of her hands as she grabs at the desk again to steady herself.
What I find is that writers are usually good at writing one or two kinds of sensory details. And usually what that means is they are good at writing what the characters are seeing and what the characters are hearing. That’s probably because for most of us those are the predominant ones we rely on in our everyday lives. Or at least, those are the ones of which we are most conscious.
But, no matter what we are consciously aware of, we don’t live our life in two senses. We also smell things, taste things, and touch things, constantly, like me right now, eating leftover chocolate with a fuzzy blanket on my lap. And aren’t those details important? I could tell you that I hear someone talking in the other room and I see the still bare winter trees outside (listen, I live in Wisconsin and it’s still cold here) but if you don’t throw in the other details your book world is going to be defined by a certain scarceness.
Seeing and hearing are often more distant senses. What I mean is that yes, of course readers want to know what your character is seeing and hearing, but whatever they are seeing or hearing is probably not right beside them. They’re hearing their partner in the other room washing dishes…that’s great! That gives ambiance and tells us something about the character. But what they are touching? That’s immediate. That’s right on them, and a detail like that can make your readers feel along with the character. (I bet you want a fuzzy blanket now too, don’t you?)
So when you’re writing about your character borrowing werid Grandma Lucy’s car for the weekend, don’t forget about the musty Grandma smell, and when you write about Jace walking to the bus stop don’t forget about how the taste of the waiting group’s cigarettes that leaves his mouth dry and dusty.
Doing a detail like this every ten lines or so will keep your readers immersed in the world you’ve created. Because after all, that’s why we write.