Poetry Secrets: How to Write Poetry
Learn more about the challenging and rewarding art of writing poems.
Write with All the Senses
By Nick Daws
The art of writing is bringing your words to life on the page. And one of the best ways to do this is to write with all the senses. In other words, don't just write about what your characters see. Describe what they hear, smell, touch and even taste as well. This is a guaranteed way to make your writing more vivid and exciting.
Here's a quick example:
Tony offered Malcolm one of his roll-ups. Malcolm had previously refused, but because he felt guilty about dropping Tony's paintbrush, this time he accepted. He didn't enjoy it at all though.
Now here's the same scene again, with the senses of taste and touch added. By the way, this paragraph comes from the published novel Painter Man by UK author Jeff Phelps:
Malcolm had already refused one of Tony's roll-ups, but now felt so bad about the brush that he accepted. Between his lips it had the texture of toilet paper. It tasted disgustingly of Tony's Old Spice aftershave.
No prizes for identifying which of these descriptions brings the scene more vividly to life! Writers are always taught to show, not tell, and writing with all the senses is one of the very best ways you can do this.
One of the most valuable things my poetry mentor ever told me has to do with one simple word. It is the most commonly used word in poetry, and it's also a pitfall for new writers. Why? Two reasons:
1) Writers know the word intimately, yet they don't know how to write about it.
2) By using the word, writers fail to connect with the
reader, because the word automatically invokes the reader's own associations,
including associations from watching movies and TV, hearing songs, and reading
other poems and books.
Do you know what the word is?
Love.
The next most commonly used word is soul. Love and soul are abstract concepts, along with denial, anger, fear, faith,
and despair. Loneliness, depression, elation, and lust are others.
Suppose you have a feeling - an emotion that only you have experienced in your
own particular way. Many readers out there have had similar experiences, but
their experiences aren't identical to yours. How can you connect?
Make your poem concrete. Fill it with facts, objects, sounds, and smells,
instead of abstract concepts. Your abstract emotion will translate into
something vivid and real, and your reader will relate to the actual experience
you're writing about, instead of imagining all the times he or she has
experienced love, or even seen it on TV.
Here's an example:
Poet "A" writes the line, "My love is envious." There are two abstracts
here: love and envy. Of course the reader might relate to envious
love, but only in an abstract, impersonal way. How does the reader
connect to the writer, instead of to his or her own understanding of envious
love? Poet "A" has a personal relationship with envious love, but
cannot convey that to the reader on an intimate level.
Poet "B" is also familiar with envious love, but decides to take this
route instead: "My love is a sharp-eyed raven; it covets all things shiny and
new." There are several concrete, specific words in this line, such as raven and sharp eyes, as well as objects that are shiny and new.
Poet "C" takes things even further, eliminating the word love as well as
envy: "I am a sharp-eyed raven, and I covet all that is shiny and new."
Love is an overused, abstract word that writers have been attempting to
describe for thousands of years. If you want your reader to understand
what you know about love, you're going to have to make it
concrete. Otherwise, we'll all write about love, and yet we will never
learn about love from somebody else. Just like real life.
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