Descriptive: 5-Senses
Writing Practice
Descriptive essays are about crafting a story that comes to life as the reader imagines vivid details of the situation or characters involved. To create this effect, ensure your writing shows what is happening rather than explaining.
Language for Impact: 5 Senses
Without Sensory Details
What happens
Your description conjures only a vague image such that your readers become disengaged.
With Sensory Details
What happens
Your description engages the readers’ five senses such that they are able to vividly picture and experience second-hand whatever is being described.
Example:
Without Sensory Details
The Snickers chocolate bar is the clear winner. It is very tasty and has many different layers to bite into.
With Sensory Details
The Snickers chocolate bar is the clear winner. Coated with silky brown chocolate and filled with chewy caramel and crunchy nuts, each bite brings an explosion of flavors and textures. The nutty, sweet smell and rustling of a Snickers bar wrapper never fails to get my stomach excited.
