Writing Sensory Description, Part 2

So in my last blog post, I discussed how, often, writers neglect sensory descriptive language in their work. Keeping in mind that we have five senses--sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch--many writers fail to incorporate all or even most of these in their writing. If you remember, I wrote this for you:

Steven entered the downtown bistro where he was to meet Elizabeth. He nudged his way to the front of the group of patrons waiting to be seated and scanned the room for her.

“Can I help you, sir?” the hostess says. At that moment, Steven spots Elizabeth.

“I’m meeting someone and I see her now,” Steven says and walks toward the table, smiling at Elizabeth as he approaches.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” he begins.

Elizabeth smiles warmly. “No, I’ve only been here about five minutes. It’s great to see you.”

I intentionally scripted this scene with no sensory description. I included nothing that gives the reader a genuine sense of entering a downtown eatery. Since Steven has to work his way to the front of the patrons waiting to be seated, you can infer that this is a busy place. What senses could come into play in a busy restaurant scene? What about smells? Can he pick out specific dishes or ingredients? What might he see when he scans the room? Employees? Patrons? Doing what? Is it noisy? What does he hear?

I have played with this scene to punch it up. I cheated a little by adding a short introductory description of Steven's approach to the bistro. Here's what I came up with:

Steven hunched his shoulders against the chilly wind as he approached Trish’s Treatery, a popular downtown bistro where he was to meet Elizabeth. Upon entering, he steeled himself against nasty looks and began to wiggle his way to the front of the dense flock of business men and women waiting to be seated. He emerged as though a butterfly from a cocoon, to view the bustling sight before him.

A no-nonsense hostess approached him, scowling. "Can I help you, sir?" Plates and glasses clinked, patrons talked and laughed, servers announced today's specials, and somewhere beneath it all, Michael Buble' sang "Haven't Met You Yet."

Steven leaned toward her and raised his voice to be heard above the din. "I'm meeting someone who's already been seated." Satisfied with this explanation, she nodded and returned to her reservation desk.

Servers in their pale burgundy uniforms hustled from kitchen to table and back again at an athletic pace. The air teemed with tantalizing smells Steven knew well; he could identify Trish’s signature risotto with andouille sausage, the portobello mushrooms with crab stuffing, and the grilled grouper with roasted garlic aioli. His mouth watered as a margherita pizza raced past carried by a 5-foot-tall server named Jenna who beamed with what Steven could only interpret as pride.

Scanning the convivial scene, he recognized Elizabeth’s silk charmeuse scarf before he even saw her face. Purchased in Paris when she was on a business trip with her law firm, Elizabeth wore the vibrant, spring-blossom-themed accessory year-round. Steven picked his way through the room, past the tables and diners, sidestepping as an elegant woman pushed back her chair to retrieve her clutch from the burgundy carpet beneath her seat.

As he approached her table, Elizabeth raised her eyes to him and smiled, flooding him with a warmth he had not felt since they’d separated three months earlier. The mere sight of those green eyes caused his hands to tremble.

OK. Love it? Hate It? Too much? Yes, maybe. At least I hope you agree it offers more to grab onto than the first version. I bombarded the senses--chilly wind, the crush of the patrons, the obstacle course of the dining room, voices, music, clothing colors and texture, and the mouth-watering entrees.

Enliven your writing by stimulating the readers' senses. Make them feel as though they are in each scene with the characters, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching what they are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. A short story or novel should play like a movie of the mind, don't you agree?

Writing Sensory Description, Part 1

Most requests for my editing services have been for novels and short stories, and to critique personal essays. The personal essay, which is a subcategory of memoir, is more akin to fiction that autobiography, but that’s a discussion (or disagreement) for another day.

Each writer’s style is as unique as a snowflake. But one piece of advice I find myself giving often is the ever-popular, never-to-be-forgotten “show, don’t tell.” As hackneyed as it might sound, this is excellent advice and an aspect of fictional writing that still gets swallowed in a sea of dialogue.

Authors remember to address the big elements of storytelling: characters have names, jobs, and life roles like wife or father, boss or best friend. They speak to other characters and move from place to place. They do things and things happen to them.

But often, scenes scream for greater narrative depth—descriptions of lighting and shadow, smells or odors, noises, textures, and temperature.

The irony of this “show, don’t tell” thing is, it subconsciously places the burden on visual (sight) description. Humans have five glorious senses that, under ideal circumstances, work together to give us a 3-D impression of our world.

Sight is the sense writers use most heavily because it’s the easiest. How people look, how things look, how places look—stories get bogged down with lots of looking and seeing. But this is not how the human senses operate in real life.

Consider a scene that takes place in a restaurant. A character enters, scans the room, spots the character he is looking for, and walks to the table and sits. That scene might be written like this:

Steven entered the downtown bistro where he was to meet Elizabeth. He nudged his way to the front of the group of patrons waiting to be seated and scanned the room for her.

“Can I help you, sir?” the hostess says. At that moment, Steven spots Elizabeth.

“I’m meeting someone and I see her now,” Steven says and walks toward the table, smiling at Elizabeth as he approaches. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” he begins.

Elizabeth smiles warmly. “No, I’ve only been here about five minutes. It’s great to see you.”

Now, I just wrote this and it is intentionally barren of descriptive words. How could I punch this up to bring this scene to life? What would draw readers into the scene? What’s missing?

In Part 2, I’ll focus on using each of the five senses to create greater narrative depth. I will rewrite the scene implementing all five senses.

You Can Help Me

Please share your ideas for adding sensory description to this bistro scene. Besides sight, what can we do with sound, touch, taste, and smell? Write a comment to help add color, noise, odor or fragrance, texture and so on to wake this scene up.

Plagiarize versus Paraphrase, Part 2

UPDATE 1/8/21

To assure that you don’t plagiarize in your writing, all you need to do is change the order of the words or substitute a few words with similar words. Right? Wrong!

This blog article will make me sound like a real by-the-book killjoy. It’s one thing to discuss the unethical (and illegal) nature of plagiarism, as I did in Plagiarize versus Paraphrase Part 1. But paraphrasing—how can anyone mess up something as simple as paraphrasing?

Recall that Merriam-Webster defines paraphrasing as “a restatement of a text, passage, or work giving the meaning in another form.” Let’s dig deeper.

Who Has to Worry?

Paraphrasing and plagiarism are primarily the concerns of writers of nonfiction. In works such as academic reports, research findings, and white papers, the writer must demonstrate his or her understanding of the material by offering an original expression of the subject. In the world of publishing, self-help and how-to books —even memoir—can fall prey to copying the work of others.

Fiction writers must be wary of plagiarizing also. In fiction, simply changing character names, locations, or time periods cannot guarantee you will not be accused of plagiarism if your story is otherwise much like that of another writer and lacks sufficient uniqueness. A solid combination of unique characters, settings, dialogue, and plot details are the hallmarks of original stories.

Writers of all genres must learn what is acceptable and what is not when sourcing the words of others.

Four Strategies to Avoid Plagiarism

The Macmillan Dictionary defines paraphrasing as “to express what someone else has said or written using different words, especially in order to make it shorter or clearer.” But be warned, that definition does not paint the entire picture.

These four strategies ensure effective paraphrasing:

1. Use synonyms for all words that are not generic. Words like planet, food, or science are so basic to our vocabulary that it is difficult to find a synonym.

2. Change the voice from active to passive and vice versa.

3. Change clauses to phrases and vice versa.

4. Change parts of speech.

Rule of thumb: Combine several of these strategies to rephrase the information so that the meaning of the content appears in your words. The use of only one of these strategies does not guarantee sufficient paraphrasing to avoid an accusation of plagiarism.

What’s a Phrase and What’s a Clause?

I don’t want to turn this article into a dry grammar lesson, but maybe a brief review wouldn’t hurt if you’re vague about your grammar rules and vocabulary.

Synonym: a word that has the same or similar meaning. Little and small. Big and large. Several and some. Happy and cheerful. Fortunate and lucky. Funny, humorous, witty.

Generic: general, common, nonspecific. The opposite is exclusive, particular, or specific. Planet is generic, Krypton is specific. Food is generic, soylent green is specific. Science is generic, sexology is specific.

Active and Passive Voice: refers to the quality of the verb—the voice of the verb tells whether the subject of the sentence performs or receives the action. Voice determines whether the subject acts or is acted upon.

I ate the boring kale salad. (active voice).

The boring kale salad was eaten by me. (passive voice)

Susan drove the beater car. (active)

The beater car was driven by Susan. (passive)

Susan changed the flat tire on the beater. (active) The flat tire on the beater was changed by Susan. (passive)

Bill faxed his inadequate resume for the job. (active)

The inadequate resume for the job was faxed by Bill. (passive)

Clause and Phrase: a phrase is a group of words that does not contain a subject (noun) and a predicate (verb). A clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a predicate. A sentence can consist of one or more clauses.

The old, purple barn (a phrase, no predicate)

Reduced it to ashes (a phrase, no subject)

The old, purple barn stood handsomely, but the fire reduced it to ashes. (complete sentence consisting of two clauses)

The old, purple barn stood handsomely (a clause, with subject [barn] and predicate [stood])

But the fire reduced it to ashes (a clause, with subject [fire] and predicate [reduced])

Parts of speech: The Big Four—noun, verb, adjective, adverb. The parts of speech are many, but these are the four that can most easily be changed to avoid plagiarism.

She succeeded in her balloon business.

Her balloon business was successful.

Her balloon business was considered a success.

All three sentences convey the same idea. The root word succeed is used as a verb in the first, an adjective in the second, and a noun in the third.

I intend to go to her animal blessing service. (intend, verb)

I have every intention of going to her animal blessing service. (intention, noun)

Respect your parents and tax consultants. (respect as a verb)

Be respectful of your parents and tax consultants. (respectful is an adjective)

Show respect for your parents and tax consultants. (respect as a noun)

One Last Thing: Intentional and Unintentional Plagiarism

One last bit of school work: the difference between intentional and unintentional plagiarism.

Intentional plagiarism is copying someone’s words or ideas without citing them, with the intention of passing them off as your own. Simply put, cheating.

Unintentional plagiarism is inadvertently leaving off the required citation(s), likely because you don't understand the rules of citation and plagiarism. A citation is required for any information taken from a source, even if you have sufficiently paraphrased the information.

Originality makes you a writer. To use the words of others makes you a cheat. Numerous surveys over the last decade have found a correlation between the rise in the use of digital tools and increased occurrences of cheating and plagiarism. Those who cheat and get away with it the first time are twice as likely to try it again.

Till next time, stay original.

In addition to my business Strike The Write Tone, I am a contract editor, writing coach, and ghostwriter for The Cheerful Word of Hendersonville, NC.