Sensory details

Sensory Details Definition

Sensory details include sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. Writers employ the five senses to engage a reader's interest. If you want your writing to jump off the page, then bring your reader into the world you are creating. When describing a past event, try and remember what you saw, heard, touched, smelled, and tasted, then incorporate that into your writing.

Sensory details are used in any great story, literary or not. Think about your favorite movie or video game. What types of sounds and images are used? What do your favorite characters taste, smell, and touch? Without sensory details, stories would fail to come to life.

When sensory details are used, your readers can personally experience whatever you're trying to describe, reminding them of their own experiences, giving your writing a universal feel. A universal quality is conveyed when the writer is able to personally connect with the readers.

Another note about sensory details: there is no one sense that's more important than another. It all depends on the scene you're trying to create. However, imagery, the sight sense, is a common feature in vivid writing.

Examples of Sensory Details

Let's look at sensory details in action. Compare the following two passages describing a trip to the grocery store.

Here's a passage without sensory details:

'I went to the store and bought some flowers. Then I headed to the meat department. Later I realized I forgot to buy bread.'

'Upon entering the grocery store, I headed directly for the flower department, where I spotted yellow tulips. As I tenderly rested the tulips in my rusty shopping cart, I caught a whiff of minty dried eucalyptus, so I added the fragrant forest green bouquet of eucalyptus to my cart.

Function of Sensory details

Most writing contains some level of imagery. One reason fiction writers deal in significant concrete detail is to permit the reader the pleasure of arriving at their own judgments and conclusions through perceptual clues. However, writers don’t have to always resort to describing the way things look to create mental images.

Sources:

https://study.com/academy/lesson/sensory-details-in-writing-definition-examples.html

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/sensory-imagery-in-creative-writing#what-is-sensory-imagery