sensory detail

SENSORY DETAIL - A literary device to engage and effect the reader. And to make solid images in the mind. 

Some things to include and consider whilst writing sensory detail.

• taste
• vision
• touch
• hearing
• smell
• lighting
• temperature
• emotion

Our next task was by using sensory detail, find a real setting and give this setting a character, it could be a room, cupboard, street, park etc. So after deciding where we was going to write about we had over lunch to go to this place and write down every bit of sensory detail about it, considering what sort of character this place is, what personality it would have, how it thinks feels and acts.

For some reason i thought it would be clever to write mine about a toilet, which basically meant i got to spend my lunch sat on the toilet taking notes of everything around me. Here are some of the notes which i wrote down;

• old abandoned toilet brush, looks like it has never been used
• toilet not flushed, not looked after, the water is stained yellow and the smell hits you as you walk in
• isolated
• dull blue walls
• confined space
• nothing to look at
• tall, prison like walls surrounding you, with even a lock on the door
• smell of cleaning products masked by the smells of piss
• someone barges in, slams the door shut in a hurry, rushing as if the are on the verge of pissing themselves, flushed toilet and get straight out of their, not even stopping to wash his hands
• no one wants to spend allot of time in here
• lonely
• cold feel with the use of cold Antarctic colours, whites and blues.
• you can hear voices and footsteps of people passing by outside, breaks the lonely silence
• mirrors for the vain to gaze into and everyone else to shy away from
• everything is wet, dirty - not wanting to touch things
• hand dryers, annoying, noisy
• nothing around but cold blue walls, prisoned of your own thoughts
• only the sounds of the dripping tap to keep you company

After lunch/sitting in a toilet for a hour, we straight away began doing some more free writing, another 10 minutes of none stop writing using the notes we had taked during lunch to give our room a character, a personality and write about it. This is the piece of writing which i came up with.

I just sit here, trapped within this prison of tall dull blue walls; the only thing to keep me company is the sound of the never ending dripping tap. Drip drip drip, although you can only sit through so much of that without it driving you insane. I hate it here, waiting in isolation, waiting in this cold confines space; occasionally the silence is broken by the shuffle of feet and muttering voices of people rushing past outside but that is only for a second or two.

Then someone barges in, rushes into my prison, slams the doors shut locking it; then just pisses all over me and gets straight out of their, stopping for a split second to check out his reflection in the mirror; that all i do, wait around all day for people to piss all over me and piss off.

I was actually quite proud of this piece of writing, I've cut bits out and altered it slightly from the one which i wrote in class. This was one of the pieces of writing which i was forced to read out infront of the class, and appart from turning into to shy person struggling to read it out i think it went down quite well. I tried using very descriptive writing to really give the impression of the rooms personality, a grumpy lonely personality, tried to describe every bit of detail painting an image of the room within your head without revealing the location until the last minute. My writing still needs allot of improving however i feel i progressing throughout the course.