How Do I Start?
Let’s start with our five primary senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Here are two examples:
Sense of Hearing
Scores of dancers packed into the dancehall as the band jammed to a Celia Cruz classic, “Ritmo Tambor y Flores,” drowning the dozens of voices among the dancers and those who stood at the perimeter. Gripping the microphone close to her lips, the lead singer sang over the conga, guira, bass, and piano, keeping a steady rhythm at the chorus of the song. When the chorus ended, the trumpets took over the singer’s voice as she stepped back from the mike and danced on the stage for the finale. A wave of laughter, shouts, and applaud erupted from the crowd after the musicians played their final note.
Sense of Smell
A strong fishy odor stung my nostrils when I entered the Chinese supermarket. As I mused what was on sale that warrants such smell, I popped an crunchy mint in my mouth. The peppermint wandered into my nasal cavity and into my brain, blocking out some of the fishy odor as I headed to the produce section, greeted by the welcoming fragrance of apples, oranges, and ginger.
As you can see, there are no helping verbs and no “telling.” Doesn’t this provide a better sense of my experiences? Do you feel more connected with the author than if I were to say, “The dance floor was packed,” or “The supermarket stank?” Even the last sentence is telling because it still doesn’t describe the scenario.
My challenge to you is to write—describe—five scenarios or events that you had experienced by using each of the five primary senses in three to five sentences. They can be a little more if you’d like. You can even make up a fictitious short story.
What About the 16 Other Senses?
This is where the system gets more challenging yet juicy, like you are leveling up in a role-playing game. Once you “get” the first five Senses, the rest should be a little easier and more fun. Here are a few more examples:
Sense of Hunger
Sitting in the back of my parent’s 1992 Nissan Maxima, I squirmed and shifted every ten seconds as we drove back to San Diego from San Francisco in the spring of 1995. We skipped having breakfast that morning in the hotel, and my stomach rumbled like a rusty pipe dragging on the concrete floor. Inhaling deep through my mouth, I hope that having extra air in my stomach would fool my stomach and brain a sense of satiety, but it didn’t work—yet I kept trying every few minutes for the next three hours in the car.
Sense of Rejection
I leaned against the rail of the pier, hanging my head over my folded hands, feeling the cool ocean breeze blowing against my face and hair. That breeze, however, did nothing to comfort my aching heart. Her arm that used to touch mine at the pier—while we enjoyed the sound of the ocean waves, the crying of the seagulls, the warm glow of the sunset—is no longer there, a phantom sensation that makes my skin colder with every passing second of thought.
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