Open Mic & Guest Post on Utilizing Senses in Your Writing

This weekend my writer's group, Pikes Peak Writers, put on some extra programming to take part in Arts Month. On Saturday, we had teen improv, then that evening we held an open mic night, where we encouraged writers to come out and read their work. We had good attendance at both, and they proved to be fun.

Now, I am not a person who's comfortable with public speaking. I force it because I run writing events, so kind of have to be up there. I really didn't want to read, but a few friends convinced me to. It was worth it, despite the fact that I think my face was flaming red the whole time (it felt warm, but who knows if it was visible). It was a kick hearing reactions from the listeners. And though it was not for feedback, I got some great extra feedback from an attendee I respect, so that was worth it, as well.

One thing I do enjoy doing is giving workshops, though I'm still a nervous wreck. I find this less personal than reading my own work or just being myself in front of people. I have one coming up next weekend, though it looks like it may be cancelled for not enough attendees. We've had some cancellations and several members (this is for a different writer's group--Pen Women) who usually come to the meetings are out of state (and country) or have something else going on already. I've noticed that this has been a busy month for a lot of folks. Unfortunately, there's a minimum attendance for the location it's at, and we're not there yet with the RSVPs we have. I'm finding it hard to take time for continued prep when it may very well be cancelled as of tomorrow.

Back to open mic. If you ever have the chance to participate in an open mic, I highly recommend you try it. Not only was it fun listening to everyone else read their pieces, all of which were good, but like I said above, it was nice to get that live feedback from other attendees as I read. It's a great way to see what's working and what isn't. Give it a try!

Okay, onto our guest poster. Have you ever read a story that left your senses tingling? Those authors who use sense description tend to create stories you can feel, smell, and taste, not just see and hear (the two most common senses described in writing.) Today, Nikolas Baron from Grammarly stops by to discuss:

Image by Gina, clker.com

Why Utilizing Your Senses Enhances Your Writing

When you read about a new recipe, what makes you want to put down the Cheetos and bake that pretzel bun? Was it that it only took twenty minutes? Or was it because the description was so inviting, delectable, and appealed to your senses? You wanted something crunchy, salty, and yeasty. You wanted something that smelled like a German restaurant. When you write fiction, using your senses adds an extra layer that traps the reader like the scent of a freshly baked loaf of bread.

Scientists say that our most memorable moments from our lives are linked to smell. We remember the fresh paint of our little brother’s room before he was born. The rubber cement we used to make posters in elementary school. Our Nana’s meatball recipe. If you can sit and write down all of your favorite memorable smells, and incorporate them into your story, you’ll be well on your way to inviting your reader on your story’s journey.

Senses are the best way to show the reader rather than tell. When you show, you give the reader the tools to figure it out on their own. When you tell them everything, your writing is not only weak, but lacks the depth of creating a viable scene.

What if I wrote something like this: I walked into the door of the old cabin that was made out of pine. There were pretzel buns on the table and it was raining. I looked for my old blue hat but couldn’t find it anywhere so I traced the countertop with my finger. I saw a bluebird outside and it chirped quickly.

In comparison to this: I ran into the old cabin slamming the door behind me. I shook off water droplets from my jacket and leather hat while breathing in the salty, yeasty air of the kitchen. The moss wept outside while bluebirds called to each other for help. I snagged a hot pretzel roll off the counter and swept the crumbs off the cool butcher-block counter onto the floor.

See, touch, hear, taste, smell. There’s a lot more punch in the second paragraph than the first. You can tell it’s raining, notifying you of the smells and sights. You can see and hear the birds chirping. You smell the fresh baked rolls and touch the cold countertop. You taste the warm bread and touch it’s crusty outside. There’s so much more to learn from the second paragraph where you show the reader with their senses rather than telling them with no interaction. Readers want to be transported when they read a story. If you fail to appeal to the senses, there’s no way for them to full immerse themselves in the story.

By OCAL, clker.com

One of the ways I like to incorporate the senses into my writing is by proofreading. When I go back through my story, it’s easy to see where I can improve and where the sense descriptions are weak. I also like to use the website Grammarly to help me proofread. Grammarly suggests helpful synonyms that are context-optimized to my style and story. It can help me improve the quality of my senses descriptions while also cleaning up my grammar and punctuation mistakes.

Incorporating the senses into your writing helps to transport the reader to the land you’ve created with your writing. It enhances their experience within the story and allows them to connect. Think about all of your strong memories. There are tons of sights, smells, touches, sounds, and tastes.

Think about the last time you ate your Dad’s famous chili. How long did the smell stay in the kitchen? How did it taste? Did it burn your mouth? Did you see him smile while making it? Did the pot boil and splash? From all of those senses, you can produce a very accurate and impressive description of the scene. Something readers can imagine and relate to. Try to incorporate using senses into your writing and see the difference. Read up on those who write excellent sense descriptions. Your readers will thank you.

By Nikolas Baron

Nikolas discovered his love for the written word in Elementary School, where he started spending his afternoons sprawled across the living room floor devouring one Marc Brown children’s novel after the other and writing short stories about daring pirate adventures. After acquiring some experience in various marketing, business development, and hiring roles at internet startups in a few different countries, he decided to re-unite his professional life with his childhood passions by joining Grammarly’s marketing team in San Francisco. He has the pleasure of being tasked with talking to writers, bloggers, teachers, and others about how they use Grammarly’s online proofreading application to improve their writing. His free time is spent biking, travelling, and reading.

Personally, I recommend Barb Samuel. Her book "How to Bake a Perfect Life" is full of comforting sense descriptions you can get lost in. Does anyone else have a book or author they'd recommend for studying the use of sense description in writing? Which sense do you use the most? Which scent do you use the least? Have you read at an open mic before? Just attended one? Would you attend one if it were offered? 

May you find your Muse.

Mile Hi Con Highlights - Days Two & Three

First, I'd like to send my thanks out to our veterans.  I hope to honor those in my family this [Mostly] Wordless Wednesday.  And my love out to my brother who leaves the 20th of this month (my birthday) to go into the Navy.

And before I jump into Mile Hi Con, Day 2, a quick NaNo update (I have not yet written for today): I'm at 18900 words, and had a great breakthrough during a movie last night, which is funny, because said movie had nothing to do with my novel.  It was two words said, and they were being used in an entirely different way than I will now be using them.  I love that inspiration can strike anywhere, for any reason.

Now for Mile Hi Con, Day 2  (Day 1 can be found here):

I had my workshop presentation on "Social Media for the Professional Woman" that morning, so I didn't end up back in Denver until a bit after 3 p.m.  Once I got up there, I got checked into my room (only my second time ever being in a hotel room on my own) and changed, then met up with my friend.  Day 2 was a lot easier on me, more comfortable.  I had a better idea of how things worked, where things were, etc.

We took in part of a panel on "Science Travesties in Current Media," which was interesting.  There was a panel of people with knowledge in different areas (for instance, an ex-Navy man pointed out that the orange torpedoes used in The Hunt for Red October are test torpedoes and would not actually blow anything up, and a woman on the panel discussed how unrealistic it was to outrun the volcano in Dante's Peak).  I don't have a lot to report on this one, though, due to missing most of it.  However, suffice it to say, always do your research.  There will be someone who knows about what you're writing about, and it will bother them when your information is inaccurate.  That's a reader you've just lost.

After that panel, I attended my very first "Once More With Feeling (and) Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog Sing Along."  I only recently started watching the series Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix (I know...gasp!), so this was the first time I'd seen the episode Once More With Feeling, but it was great fun, and easy to follow along.  Even better, the lights were out, so you could sing without being embarrassed.  And I did!  This particular episode is a musical, with some manner of curse causing everyone to randomly break into song and dance.  Quite fun!  Then came Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, which I'd only seen once before (again, courtesy of Netflix), and only this past year.  At least I'd seen it, though, so I knew the tunes a bit better.  I'd totally do this again!

I attended a reading, and I will not name the readers, because I discovered I don't like just sitting and listening to people read.  I need to be reading it myself.  I can't pay attention to books on tape, either.  Maybe it's the ADHD, I don't know, but I was bored out of my mind.  Now, it did make me want to purchase several of the books.  It was not at all about the books not being interesting.  I just can't sit and listen to people read.  I can't sit and watch a movie without fidgeting, either.  It's just not for me.  Again, some really interesting books were shared, though, and they're on my wish list now.

We grabbed some food and then ended up taking part in some after hours fun.  I won't go into that, because I have to say that after hours at Mile Hi Con, stays after hours at Mile Hi Con.  Suffice it to say that I didn't get to my room until about 2:30 in the morning, and that I hung out with some people that I respected in the writing world, which was fantastic.  I also met a lot of new people and had a good time.  And I can safely say, in case you're worried, that I didn't do anything regrettable or illegal.  Well, I'm pretty sure it was all legal... (just kidding, people...it was all illegal!).  Come on, you all know I'm a boring old mom.

The only thing I'm sad about is that we were going to go to Rocky Horror Picture Show.  I've seen it, of course, multiple times, but I've never gotten to see it with a crowd, singing along, participating, you know?  And that is an experience I'd like to have, just because I haven't.  Maybe next year?  I don't know if they do that every year, but I hope to have the opportunity next year.

Since that was short, I'm going to run through Day 3.  I didn't get up early, because, well, I'm a mom, and I wanted to sleep in, dangit!  And there was nothing I so desperately wanted to do that I was willing to drag my butt out of bed.  Once I did drag my butt out of bed, I had a lovely, albeit overpriced, meal in the hotel (I took all my meals in the hotel at one or another of their restaurants, so they were all overpriced - at least the food was good).  After breakfast, I had to check out and take all my stuff out to my car, so I missed another hour's worth of programming.

After that, I went to the second half of "Transparency & Ethics in Scientific Research" and left feeling dumber than when I went in, not because of a failure on the parts of the panelists, but because a few of the discussions were a bit over my head.  I don't take part in scientific research, don't write papers on it, etc.  I did find it interesting, though, which is why I attended.

By OCAL, clker.com

I then went to "Comedic Elements in Horror," which was fun.  Those of you who stopped by during Alex's Genre Favorites Blog Fest know that my guilty pleasure is horror comedy, so this was right up my alley.  The panelists were Jesse Bullington, James K. Burk, Wayne Faust, Stephen Graham Jones and Molly Tanzer.  They discussed needing those tension breaks in a movie, and how comedy works well for that.  It's a better version of the startle response (for instance, the cat that jumps out in so many horror movies).  You startle and laugh at yourself, and some of the tension is broken up so it can grow again.  But in horror comedy, you get a legitimate laugh to break that tension.  A quote I enjoyed was "Nobody laughs at a clown at midnight," originally said by Lon Chaney.  It means things that aren't scary in one setting (say, a birthday party during the day) can be scary in the right setting (let's look at Stephen King and the clown in the sewer).  It's about how you handle it, how you set it, and the unexpected.

By OCAL, clker.com

After lunch it was time for the "Strong Women in Sci-Fi" panel, with Rudy Ch Garcia, CJ Henderson, Cherie Priest, Jeanne Stein, and Molly Tanzer.  They discussed what made a strong female in books, and it wasn't necessarily the cliched bad ass, but just a woman who showed strength of character and fortitude.  Women can be strong in many, many ways, and they don't all involve big guns or vampire stakes.  And they certainly don't have to involve scantily clad females.  Women who weren't strong were those who needed to be rescued (though not accepting help is not, in itself, strong either), who were dependent on others, who were foolish.  Overall, a valid point was to study women you know.  Who do you see as a strong woman?  What makes you feel that way?  What traits make her a strong woman?  Do you know a weak woman?  What points might she have that you'd want to avoid?  As someone on the panel said, it shouldn't be that hard to write a strong woman unless you've never had one in your life.

My final panel before heading home was entitled "Forget About the Midi-Chlorians and Embrace The Force! Religion and Sprituality in SF & F."  On the panel were Stephen Brust, Michael Carroll, Daniel Dvorkin, Warren Hammond, and Aaron Ritchey (one of my columnists over at Writing From the Peak!).  Most agreed that religion should play a part in world building, as religion is big in people's lives.  Look globally.  How does religion play a part in real life?  Consider that when building your worlds.  Religion dictates ways of life, laws, morals, etc.  So don't forget that detail.

At this point, I was thoroughly exhausted and missed my hubby and my babies, so I took off, skipping closing ceremonies and bobbing for authors (fun in the hot tub - I had no interest in being seen in my bathing suit).  Traffic cooperated with me, and I was able to get home in time for a wonderful dinner, put together by my hubby.  And I got to read to my babies and tuck them in at bed time.  Perfect.

Any of these panels you might have found interesting?  Do you know what a midi-chlorian is (cuz' I didn't)?  Would you laugh at a clown at midnight?

May you find your Muse.