Writing Exercises to Engage the Senses

Ah, the senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. How do these things relate at all to writing exercises?

We delight in the pleasures of the senses, but infusing writing with sensory stimulation is not an easy task. It takes a deft and creative writer to forge written images that trigger a reader’s senses.

So, why bother? Why attempt writing exercises that involve sensual triggers?

Well, when you engage your readers’ senses, your work becomes more compelling and more memorable. Some scientists say that smell is the strongest of the senses in terms of memorability. So, if you get your readers to experience scents, you’ll have them hooked.

These writing exercises are designed to help you write with more sense. Below, you’ll find a series of short writing exercises that culminate with creating a written piece that is peppered with sensory stimuli:

Prepare

• Start with a sheet of paper divided into five columns. If you prefer to do writing exercises like this on your computer, you can use Excel or Word or some other program.
• Label the columns: eyes, ears, mouth, hands, and nose.
• Spend a few minutes populating the columns with words and phrases that reflect the correlating senses. For example, in the smell column, you might write chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven, a blooming rose, or the cat’s litter box. Be as descriptive as possible and avoid using only stimuli that please or entice; add a few that are unpleasant for balance.

Review

• Review your list carefully, testing each item on your list to see how it affects you. When you read something like throbbing bass coming from the car in the next lane, can you feel the boom?
• As you go through your list, cross out anything that doesn’t engage your senses.
• Highlight those items that really affect you – when you can feel the soft slick fabric of silk or hear the sound of a quiet breeze rustling dried and fallen leaves, you’re affected.

The Writing Exercises

• Try writing one sentence for each of the five senses. Make sure it’s a complete sentence, and try to generate a sentence that evokes a scene. In other words “The roses smell nice,” won’t cut it. Try for something like: “She bent down slowly, beckoned by the rose’s sweet perfume and dazzling red hue.”
• Next, try to do what I did in the sample sentence above. Combine two or more senses into a single, complete sentence. When you read it back, does your nose tingle? Do you see bright colors in your mind? Can you hear the sound that you tried to evoke?
• Finally, write a brief essay, poem, or short story in 500 words or less, and be sure to stimulate each of the five senses in the piece. As a bonus, you can work in the sixth sense as well.

Tips

• Need some ideas? Start by choosing a setting, such as an event, where it’s likely all fives senses would be stimulated. For example, at a wedding, there will be the scent of fresh flowers, the taste of a wedding cake, and the sound of “Here Comes the Bride.” Other likely events include concerts, parties, meetings, vacations, and – try this one – cleaning day.
• If you get stuck, refer to your brainstorm list or practice sentences and use that material for inspiration.
• Try not to make it too obvious. A reader shouldn’t be able to notice that you’re triggering all their senses, so be sure it flows naturally.

The purpose of writing exercises is to have fun while challenging yourself. If you try these stimulating writing exercises, feel free to post what you’ve written in the comments. Also, If you have any favorite writing exercises of your own, feel free to share them by leaving a comment.

And keep on writing sensibly!