After reading a few books over the last few days, it got me to thinking about how many details are from a visual perspective. There are some common themes to describe if someone is in control of their emotions or not. The writer tells in grave detail about the color of the eyes as a riveting point of context. If the man/woman is supposed to be dreamy they always give the eye color en tell you what color flecks also reside within those eyes. Never have I read a book in which they just say that the person had ordinary brown eyes. Physical characteristics are also very important with lots of visual descriptors. Even scenery is always given first in optic characteristics and then maybe in how things sound or smell lastly.

As a person who had vision and now doesn’t. I can appreciate the visual additions to a story. I can recall colors although I have not seen any colors for ten years or more. My imagination is still very good and I like to be able to perceive what the writer is describing.

As a person who loves to write, I am going to write a book in which all of my descriptions will have nothing to do with visual recollections. They will be based on what can be smelled, felt, heard, or tasted.

Something like this:

The sizzle from the grill in which the peppered, thick strips of bacon were cooking, brought Erin straight out of her sleep with the delicious aroma. She could hear the popping of the fat cooking on the edges of that bacon all the way to her room. She had a few minutes to lay there anticipating the way that bacon would taste in her mouth. Until to her dismay she could smell that the pungent, delectable scent was replaced by an acrid and stiff smell instead. “Oh no,” she muse, “Mom has burned the bacon again.” As if on cue the smoke alarm sounded at the infringement of the smoke rising from the stove. Erin could have just tasted the bacon on her tongue but now she felt the repulsion of not being able to eat the scorched pork. When she made her way to the breakfast area, she picked up one of the charred remains and it crumbled between her fingers. A bowl of cereal would have to do this morning. The sun felt warm on her face as she sat in her usual spot at the table to eat yet another bowl of cereal. She had so many hopes of this morning being different. It was not.

What can be seen through the eyes is almost an easy way of getting off the hook when telling a story. Unless of course you cannot see it for yourself and are left with only additional puzzling thoughts.

It is just an idea. In your own life, try to go through a short season in which you do not add one word of description based on what is being seen. It is much harder than it sounds.

See the world through different senses.

Blessings, Denise

From the writer of seeingdifferences.com

http://seeingdifferences.com/