LC, founder of eFrog Press, hosts the Take the Leap blog and regularly blogs about all things ebook!
If you have been following my posts on the 21 Senses exercises to add sensory detail to your writing, here is Part 3. If not, here are links to my earlier posts on the topic:
An Introduction to the 21 Senses (Part 1)
Ever wonder what it means when your manuscript comes back marked “Show, don’t tell!”? The 21 Senses exercises will supply the answer for writing with more detail but not just embroidering your text.
Here are more models from two of the finest writing teachers I have ever known—Gary Bradshaw (1948-1994) and Frank Barone, active poet and retired teacher (derived from the 21 Senses exercises in Donald Murray’s A Writer Teaches Writing).
These additional five non-traditional senses can challenge you to add details that matter to your manuscript.
SENSE OF HISTORY
This Sense goes back into the past to describe an event that happened before the Writer’s birth.
I had heard the story many times from my father. My father had come to America as a young boy. No matter how young, every immigrant family worked to survive. My father had worked shining shoes. When the school officials came to place him in school, his mother and father lied about his age to keep him out of school. So he worked to help support his family. In his spare time he would read until his father ripped the book from his hands and told him to get back to work. He continued to read, though, when ever he could, and taught himself to speak and write English well enough to get a job with Western Union. Years later he became the head of communications for the Commercial Bank of Italy and, after World War II, for Cities Service Oil Company. I always describe my father as a self-taught man.
I reached into the green-mesh bag of soccer balls for the game ball. Quickly I set aside two black-and white marked MeKasa soccer balls. These played well for practice, but I wanted the best ball for the game. Digging deeper into the bag, I rolled out two black-and-white MeKasas, yellowing from age. Shaking my head, I pulled out two Umbro soccer balls. Blue and red diamonds twisted around the balls. The hand stitching that bound them together spelled quality and pleased me. Grabbing one, I pressed in on it. Slightly under-inflated, this ball would flatten against the foot like a mushroom when kicked. Picking up the second Umbro, I pressed in on it, and, finding it firm, I tossed it to the referee. 
After years of teaching writing, writing articles, editing, working with authors, and meeting in writing groups; I get it. Writing is a process. My former high school students would toss off one draft and be ready to turn it in. “I’m done!” they would announce.
