WHAT IS A SENSORY LIST?



WHAT IS A SENSORY LIST?A Sensory List is a practice of poetic craft that turns abstract ideas into tangible, concrete images in a poem or a short story. It turns ideas and emotions into images we can imagine using our senses. In this exercise, specificity is magic. The more detailed the concrete image, the more alive and believable the image. CONCRETE IMAGEA concrete image is any image written in a piece of fiction or poem that the reader can taste, touch, smell, hear, imagine and/or feel. These images become tangible or palpable to our senses. ABSTRACT IDEAAbstract ideas are also called concepts. For the purposes of this exercise, they are abstractions or abstract images. What this means is these images are words usually associated with ideas and feelings such as time, love, nature, wonder, loss, hate, envy, faith, fate, integrity, etc. They are words that we use, but we have never actually seen, touched, smelled or heard. We can conceptualize them, but they are not of our material world. WHY DO WE NEED A SENSORY LIST?A sensory list is our opportunity as writers to give our concepts / ideas and feelings a voice, a texture, a sound, a description or a metaphor. What does loss look like to you, what does it taste like, what does it feel like? This is essential to writing words with texture and to give your reader a feeling he or she can bite into and taste and touch and feel. We literally transform concept ideas into concrete images using the sensory list.HOW DO WE USE A SENSORY LIST?Think of any abstraction (loss, love, pain, jealousy, etc.) and write that in the sensory list section, next to “Concept Word.” Then, witness the world around you, be an observer of earth and look at objects, animals, people’s gestures, sounds, smells, everything and anything that can be physically seen, felt, heard, or tasted. Write them down in the chart as follows:EXAMPLESConcept Word: AngerLooks likeA stack of books on my tableSounds likeThe slither of a waterfall in the background of a rainy nightSmells likeThe threads from a worn out ropeTastes likeThe metal in my bloodFeels likea swollen intestine gurgling near my stomachReminds me of My mother’s faded photograph lying on the grassIsThe threads from a worn out rope like an intestine gurgling near my stomachSo it becomes …Anger rises like a stack of books on my father’s table / each page a thread from a worn out rope / reminds of a swollen intestine gurgling near my stomach … SENSORY LIST – Adopted by Micheal DerbyUse the chart below as a template to create your sensory list.Concept Word: Looks likeSounds likeSmells likeTastes likeFeels like Reminds me ofIs the opposite ofIs ................
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