Writing Exercise: USING THE FIVE SENSES, 2

I recently cleaned out my files and found various materials that I had used when teaching my class in writing for children in the UCLA Writer’s Program. Here is another version of my writing exercise called “Using the Five Senses.”
 
Most of us have no trouble writing visual descriptions, but we often forget to include our other senses in our writing. This exercise focuses on using all five senses to make your writing come alive.  Choose an object, place, person, or animal, and write five sentences about it, one sentence (or two) for each sense-- sight, sound, touch, taste and smell.  The following examples are from my book Fox (Morrow Junior Books) now available as an ebook on Amazon.

• Sight: When most people think of foxes, they picture the red fox, with its large white-tipped tail and brilliant flame-colored fur.

These large pointed teeth cut against each other like the blades of scissors and are good for ripping and tearing.

• Sound: These high-pitched sounds, called ultrasounds, are made by many of the rodents that are the foxes’ prey.

Foxes bark or growl as warning to one another or to predators that come too close. If a fox is trapped or cornered, it makes croaking noises.

• Touch: Each month-old pup weighs about a pound, and its short newborn coat is covered with soft light-colored fur.

• Smell: One sign of a fox’s readiness to mate is a strong skunk-like odor in its urine.

Like other canids, a fox has a scent gland underneath its tail that produces a strong musky odor.

• Taste: When the pups are about two weeks old, their first teeth come in. About a week later, they begin to suck and chew at the pieces of meat their parents have brought back to the den.

You can write more complex descriptions if you like.  The important thing is to immerse yourself in the scene and use all your senses to convey the essence of that scene to your reader.  To find out if you are using sensory descriptions in your writing, go through one of your stories with a highlighter, and mark each time you use one of your senses.  Note which sense you use most often!

THE CRAFT OF WRITING: On Writing Well by William Zinsser

My favorite book on the craft of writing is On Writing Well by William Zinsser. More than forty years after it was first published, I still think it is the best guide to nonfiction writing I’ve read.  Clear, well-organized, thorough, entertaining, and practical–it embodies the principles it teaches.  As I write and edit my own manuscripts, advice from this book is always at the back of my mind.
Among my favorite quotes is one from the section on punctuation:

• “There’s not much to be said about the period except that most writers don’t reach it soon enough.”

After a brief introductory chapter, the first real chapter in the book begins with this sentence:

• “Clutter is the disease of American writing.”  

De-cluttering is the route to clarity and it is my goal as I edit my own manuscripts,

THE WRITING PROCESS: Six Questions Exercise

When Mammoths Walked the Earth is available as an e-book on Amazon

I recently cleaned out my files and found various materials that I had used when teaching my class in writing for children in the UCLA Writer’s Program. Here is a writing exercise called “Six Questions.”

When I started researching my book When Mammoths Walked the Earth (Clarion, 2002) I ended up with a jumble of facts about these huge prehistoric animals that lived in the Ice Age. My job in writing the book was to line up the facts so they made sense. So I asked myself a few questions: Who were the mammoths? What did they look like? Where and when did they live? Why were they unique? How do we know about them?
Asking questions is a technique I use that helps me focus on what my book is about and this helps me figure out how to organize the information. The six basic questions are who, what, where, when, why and how. Try answering the following questions about your subject. Your answers will help you shape your story. (Although my focus is on writing nonfiction, this exercise works for fiction too.)

Who is your book about? Who or what is the main subject or character of your story?
What does your subject look like? What is unique or special about your subject’s appearance?
Where does the main character live? Or, where does the story take place? In other words, what is the setting of your story.
When does the story happen? That is, what is the time frame?
How does the main subject behave? How is it adapted to its particular way of life? Or, what is the main action of the story?
Why should we be interested in your subject? What makes it compelling?

Note: When Mammoths Walked the Earth is out of print but available as a Kindle book on Amazon.

Writer's Block Tip #34

Are you stuck on your story?  Do you have writer’s block?  My friend Joanne Rocklin’s Anti-Block Blog is the perfect answer to solving the problem of what to do when you are stuck.  Twice a week she posts helpful tips for writers.  Drawing from her own experience and with contributions from other writers, she is up to 36 tips. (Her goal is 180!) Here are a few of the topics covered in her recent posts:  Focusing on your audience; getting support from your friends; using index cards; making lists, and so on.  You can look for my tip, reading your story aloud, in tip #34 posted on August 1st.
Joanne Rocklin is the author of the wonderful middle grade novel One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street, inspired by the orange tree in her own backyard.