Feeding the Senses

They say you eat first with your eyes before you ever take a bite. Food forces you to use all your senses. You see the apple pie baking in the oven and look for the browning of the crust to see if it's done. The sound of bacon sizzling in the skillet lets you know if your pan is hot enough. Did you know that between seventy and seventy-five percent of taste actually comes from your sense of smell? (True fact.) Smell can also save your food (and perhaps your life) if you're suddenly aware of smoke wafting from your oven. Yep, that's happened to me a few times--particularly when I lived in my old house where we named the built-in oven Prometheus. It was forty-five years old and brought many a fire. Obviously, you taste the sweet and salt of honey-roasted peanuts, and you feel your food with your fingers when you pick up a perfectly crisp piece of fried chicken or anticipate the gooey melt of a warm chocolate chip cookie.

Sensory imagery is important to writing as well. Feeling grounded via description and sensory image will help your reader to feel as though he or she is inside your story. For example, if your characters are outside on a windy day, describing the air temperature as "balmy" creates a completely different image than "arctic."

But, just as too much salt can ruin the flavor of a soup, too many descriptors will make your story taste "off" as well. They slow down the pace. They weigh down the story so much that readers won't want to continue. Finding the balance between giving the right amount of sensory imagery and overloading the reader isn't as tricky as it seems. Simply try reading your work aloud. If you find yourself slowing down because of the number of adjectives, you know you need to trim some fat. Feeding the senses with your writing doesn't have to mean gorging on them. Unlike the soup that's been ruined with too much salt, your writing can be saved.