Writing With Sense

If you’ve ever taken a creative writing class or attended a fiction workshop, you’ve heard this clear set of directions:  “Show.  Don’t Tell.”  That seems easy enough, but I admit I’ve had to give a lot of thought to that at times to ensure I’m not guilty of the reverse.  How do you not tell when you’re telling a story?  The nuances of those words must be given some serious thought to find the answer.  One way to practice showing is to be sure you write with the senses.

Flanary O’Connor wrote about what she called “the texture of existence around you.”  I’ve been reading her collection of essays published as Mystery and Manners, and I’ve found a lot of good advice that is certainly still applicable several decades later.  Here are some words of wisdom to consider:

Fiction operates through the senses, and I think one reason that people find it so difficult to write stories is that they forget how much time and patience is required to convince through the senses.  No reader  who doesn’t actually experience, who isn’t made to feel, the story is going to believe anything the fiction writer merely tells him.  The first and most obvious characteristic of fiction is that it deals with reality through what can be seen, heard, smelt, tasted, and touched. Now this is something that can’t be learned only in the head; it has to be learned in the habits.  It has to become a way that you habitually look at things.  The fiction writer has to realize that he can’t create compassion with compassion, or emotion with emotion, or thought with thought.  He has to provide all of these things with a body; he has to create a world with weight and extension.”  (91-92)

When reading this, I was taken back to a few months ago when I was workshopping with other writers.  One of the workshop participants was Rodney, a sometimes difficult reader to sell and, therefore, one of the best readers I can have critique my work.  After I read and Rodney was ready to comment, he referred back to a what I considered a minor detail in the scene.  Near the end, as one of my characters was preparing for bed after a long day of working in the summer, I wrote, “He still felt the heat of the day inside him.  He was sure it radiated off him.”

Rodney said those two short sentences had struck him because he had experienced that sensation himself.  He went on to talk in more detail about how your skin feels after being in the sun all day and how it makes you tired.  He talked more about those conditions than I did in the scene, because with those two lines, he gained a stronger identification with the character.  That made the rest of the scene seem more real to him.

Now, this happened to be the feeling that hit Rodney over the head.  It may not have the same effect on other readers, but it’s my hope there are other details that might evoke the same sort of attachment for someone else.  Let me correct that last sentence.  I don’t just hope this, I plan for this by providing details about the smell in the air, the way the moon shines into the room after the lights are turned off, the feel of the newly washed bed sheets, the quality of the summer air as it blows through the open window.  Not all of these details will work in the end, but try to consider the senses from the beginning and cut the excess out later.

O’Connor goes on to say many writers educate themselves about the senses by painting.  The author Silas House says to visualize your scenes as frames in a movie.  I think still photography often can serve the same purpose and help deepen your understanding of what you see around you.  Journaling is another good way to practice recording details about textures and smells and tastes, as well as the kinds of impressions that come from your experiences with the senses.

Remember that these details must never become too technical.  As Flannary advises, use only essential details to move your story forward.