by Michael Lydon
After a lazy month of a late summer holiday, September has come and gone, October is halfway done, and a week of chilly gray mornings are telling me, brrrr, that November is only a week or two away. Good bye shorts and t-shirts, hello sweaters, scarves, and denim jackets buttoned up under my chin.
Well, I asked myself as I sat down at my desk, what’s going on with you young scribblers at Write the World? Hmm, “Personal Essays,” could be richly revealing, and “College Essays” could focus on getting into the college of your dreams. “Speech Writing” might get you into the Debate Club, and “This I Believe” could help you find the foundation stones of your character. All the prompts were interesting, challenging, worthy of your very best work, but then I saw one, “Your World in Three Senses,” that made me say, “Huh, what’s that about? Don’t we all have five senses? Don’t some people say maybe we have six?”
So, curious as a cat, I scrolled down the long list of “Published Writing,” and soon I had forgotten all about prompts and senses and getting into college. All I could think was, “This is some of the best writing I’ve ever read, not just in my three years doing my Write the World blog, but the best writing I’ve read anywhere, any time, by anybody!” Of course I knew I was reading, not three hundred page novels, but fragments two, three, or a five hundred words long, and I couldn’t promise that this or that young writer had a Huckleberry Finn or a Tale of Two Cities in him or her. But the few lines that I read in each segment blew me away.
For example this from “The Devil is Cold” by Blotted Ink with a Broken Quill:
As the keel of the schooner crested the massive wave, I gritted my teeth, and feeling the salt in my eyes, I clutched onto the halyard as if it were life or death—which it was. I heard the indistinct screaming from every direction, and blocked it out. If I, or any of the four men behind me let go, we would sink to the bottom of this damned godforsaken graveyard. So through it all, through the crashing thunder and lightning,…
Herman Melville, watch out, Blotted Ink is catching up with you! He’s got the three senses: touch—clutching the halyard; sight—lightning; sound—thunder; but there is also his gritting teeth, salt in his eyes, his crewmates’ indistinct screaming, and the nausea caused by the heaving waves.
The place that Mads’ “Pages and Words” creates could not be more different—a quiet study, not a storm-wracked boat—but it too is built from sensory words and images. Smell becomes Mads’ dominant sense: “a musky sweet scent…almost smoky,” “the smell of old books,” but I note with pleasure her fingertips trailing “over the textured paper,” “the bumps and divots” of the old book’s cover
Letters and words seem to dance on the pages as my fingertips trail over the textured paper. A musky sweet scent envelops me, almost smoky. I embrace the bumps and divots on the cover, tracing them with my hands. I take a deep breath willing the smell of old books to engulf me completely, wholly. My eyes stray back to the words on the page, and I am now not only surrounded by the smell of the book…
Nafo23 uses as many sensory words as Mads, and his “The Park” creates a more down to earth yet equally see-able picture:
The soft dirt crumbles beneath my feet as I walk to the spot that suits me best. I take a seat and the wet grass folds itself around my fingers. A crow caws before being shooed away by an angry child. The sun claws at my eyes like a cat at a scratching post, and I move my hand to block the light. The wind whistles through my ears as it tickles my face playfully, and I feel the cold air running…
In “Memories of Home” ejhalteman remembers an elderly relative who “always smelled faintly of a strong perfume.” In “My Little Spring” Stewart Worthington “feels as soft as the petals of the Spring’s first flower.” In “The Demon of Cold” ShadowsAlive creates a mountain climber who is closing his eyes, “pulling his scarf up his face even further, trying to shield his skin from the chill.”
Not every passage focuses on three or more senses. In “Morning,” Armour-clad pinpoints the cozy warmth of waking up under a blanket:
I wake up under the warmth and fuzzy softness of a blanket that feels like fur. I refuse to open my eyes and lay in the warmth for ages as my mind drags itself from the haze of sleep. My fingers feel rough on my face and as I yawn my palms press against my cheeks and eyes brow and end with my fingertips in my hair. My hair is thick and smooth, and I can feel the grease...
and AlaynaK paints the nearly opposite sensation of swimming in cold water:
Whether it be the ocean or a pool to me the feel of the cold, refreshing water touching my skin is the greatest feeling I have ever felt. The loud sounds of the people above the water and as soon as I go under the surface I am surrounded by the silence of the water. This serenity washes all my problems away with the soothing currents. All my nerves can finally relax.
Why do sensory words have such powerful effect on our writing? To get a detailed answer to that question you’ll need to consult a linguist, but here’s a rough-and-ready answer from a professional writer: because whenever we hear or see a word we know, our brains instantly conjure up an image of that word’s meaning. If we read a meaningless word—parnzaber or dorgclim—we get no image; but bicycle, tomato, shovel, antelope, sailboat, and pencil—we read and see, read and see, read and see. If the word meaning includes a reference to action by or about our five senses, we can’t help but see that action:
The man scooped the ice cream.
The woman combed her hair.
The bird hopped from branch to branch.
And that means that, when read, sensory words and images create vivid sequences of events in our brains:
John stirred the pot of beef stew on the stove, sniffed it and took a tiny taste on a spoon—mmm, good! Mary came running into the kitchen, carrying the crying baby. “Can’t you smell the smoke from the Jones’ barbeque,” she shouted.
All the Write the World writers quoted above have found ways to create those vivid sequences in their reader’s brain. They were not satisfied with “John went to the store” or “Mary came into the kitchen.” No, they know that the world we live in is not tasteless, odorless, colorless, silent, or texture-less to our fingertips. To tell the truth of life, they know, we must engage the raw physicality of our world, a sunset’s golden glow, the pungent smell of garlic, the tang of an autumn apple, the bark of a watchful dog, and the sweet soft skin of a newborn child.
About Michael Lydon
Michael Lydon is a writer and musician who lives in New York City. Author of many books, among them Rock Folk, Boogie Lightning, Ray Charles: Man and Music, and Writing and Life. A founding editor of Rolling Stone, Lydon has written for many periodicals as well, the Atlantic Monthly, New York Times, and Village Voice.
He is also a songwriter and playwright and, with Ellen Mandel, has composed an opera, Passion in Pigskin. A Yale graduate, Lydon is a member of ASCAP, AFofM local 802, and on the faculty of St. John’s University.