Sensory Aids- Creative Writing

What we know of the world, we know it through our senses. The human body is a brilliant thing, we are designed for efficiency in almost everything, except for flying, it would be great if we had a set of hidden wings too. The food we taste, the sights we see, the things we touch, the sounds we hear and everything we smell, all of these senses information helps us form memories. A good writer has the power to make people see, smell, taste and touch things that aren't actually there just by reading about them; that is the power of descriptive writing. 

 It won't be correct to say, 'this looks delicious.' How can you tell something is delicious simply by looking at it? That is an incorrect usage of the adjective delicious. Similarly, there are many words that we are using incorrectly in our day to day lives to describe things. Our senses are bombarded by information all the time, in order for us to describe what we are experiencing or seeing, we need to use the right words for the right things. Descriptive writing harnesses the power our senses to help the reader visualize or experience whatever is written on paper. The English language is equipped with several words that cater to our senses which can help us draft clean, interesting and imaginative written pieces. ‘A journey through a market place’ for example is a topic that is ideal to test a student’s descriptive writing skills. They must describe everything from the colours they see, to the sounds they 

Sensory aids are a terrific tool that can assist in the process of creative writing. You could say, ‘although it was a nice apartment, it was in a noisy area, which is why we didn’t buy it’ or you could say ‘the continuous cacophony of clangs, bangs and car horns outside the apartment were terrible accompaniments to an otherwise spacious abode, especially for a long term stay, which is why we didn’t buy the house.’ As a reader, which sentence gave you a better sensory experience? The second sentence definitely has more impact on the reader as one can practically hear the clangs and cars horns while reading the sentence. Students are taught how to write such descriptive sentences, and in turn better fiction, non-fiction pieces in this module. 

Due emphasis is given on building one’s vocabulary to include adjectives, verbs and adverbs that can stimulate a reader to actually feel or sense the things he/she is reading.  Descriptive writing is heavily used in almost all stories and novels. What decides the fate of a popular novel as compared to an average one is the story for certain but the reader also needs to be encapsulated by the world he/she is reading about. It you felt that sharp tangy taste of lemon in your mouth while you were reading about it in a book, the author has done a good job.