LC, founder of eFrog Press, hosts the Take the Leap blog and regularly blogs about all things ebook!
Here is the fourth and final post on the 21 Senses. Previous posts can be found here:
An Introduction to the 21 Senses (Part 1)
Below are the last six 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).
Consider adding these senses to your writing toolkit.
SENSE OF READER
MEMO: To All Teachers
Sally Haines, one of our school’s counselors, gave birth last night to an eight pound baby girl named Sara Anne. Sally requests that we postpone our visit until she and her baby have returned home.
Jake Barnes, Principal
SENSE OF INVOLVEMENT
This Sense creates a situation in which the writer or a character is emotionally touched by someone else’s predicament and comes to the aid of that person.
As my son breaks through an opening, dribbling, pushing the soccer ball forward, an opponent slide crashes, and cleats up into him from behind. My son cartwheels forward. No referee’s whistle sounds. Suddenly, he shrieks, clutching his Achilles tendon. In anger I yell, “Blow your damn whistle, ref, when there’s a vicious foul.”
SENSE OF DETACHMENT
This Sense creates a situation in which the writer or a character sees a problem. The problem moves him, but he cannot offer relief.
I placed the last item in my shopping cart and wheeled it into line behind the mother with the screaming baby and the tactile three year old whose hands touched and grabbed and pushed and realigned all the candy bars, chewing gum, mints, and magazines within his reach. The mother tried to divide her attention equally between the screamer and the toucher, but it became obvious that they outmatched her. At the point of feeling sorry for her, I saw her bend over and with her face eyeball to eyeball with Sally Screamer she hissed out two deliberate words, “Shut … up.” Then she straightened up and slapped Tommy Toucher across his face. As a parent I wanted to engage her in reasoned discourse on her lack of control and debate with her on her methodology of discipline, but I only slouched behind my cart and tried to block out the wails and sniffles that offended my ears.
SENSE OF CURIOSITY
Bending over her paper, her pen raced across the page. From time to time, she looked up, caught my gaze, smiled mischievously, and wrote on. Once she whispered to her seatmate, pointing at me. Then she pounced on her paper again. I wonder, am I the target of her pen?
SENSE OF LANGUAGE
“Hi, Gerry. How was your game?”
“Totally bogus. I took a nine on Number 5. I teed it up and dunked it into the lake. Then I shanked my drive into the trees on the right. The ball landed up against a tree, and I couldn’t get relief so I took a swipe at it and whiffed. I punched it out with a seven iron short of the green, and then hit a wedge into the sand trap. I blasted out long but hit a good approach and sank a two-footer for nine. After that it was bogie, bogie, double bogie, bogie and a big fat 42.”
“Some days are like that, Gerry.”
“Right. I’ve got a starting time for a foursome at three. See you tomorrow.”
SENSE OF FORM
This Sense puts words in some specific shape or form.
CINQUAIN
New friend
come together
risk within the circle
share, listen, laugh, and change into
old friends.
SENSE OF IRONY
I had difficulty working with my father. I could never match his high standards. Whatever I did either displeased him or received suggestions on how to do it right. He demanded perfection, or so it seemed to this teenager. The other day I angrily criticized my fourteen-year-old son for not using his paintbrush properly. His response showed me how I felt about my own father when my son said, “I’m sorry I can’t be as perfect as you.”
Feedback
I would love to hear how you have used the 21 Senses in your own writing. Do you think sensory detail is overrated? Share any techniques you have for “showing” not “telling.”
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.
