Descriptive Writing + Sensory Detail

"Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking”
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

As expected, some people in the class were stuggling with the idea of "sensory detail." We're going to talk about this issue a lot more in the coming weeks, but I might as well try to define it here. Basically, "sensory details" in descriptive writing are details that appeal to the five senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. The trick of descriptive writing is to use language in a way that activates your reader's senses, allowing the reader to "experience" what is being described instead of just telling her about it. For example, say you were to write this:

The station was old and crowded.

This sentence provides some information, but it's relatively "low resolution." As a reader, I know that we're in a station -- some kind of public place where people come and go. But what kind of station? Police, bus, subway -- I'm not sure. I know that the station is "old," but I don't know quite what that means. Is it a well-preserved 100-year-old building, full of marble and polished wood? Or is it a creepy, decrepit place with peeling paint and a leaky ceiling? Again, I'm not sure. I know that the station is "crowded," but I couldn't say whether that means that all of the seats are taken or people are standing shoulder to shoulder, unable to move.

Now look at this sentence:

People from all over the city crowd the platform -- ragged hipsters and hip-hop wannabees, Wall St. executives in fine Italian suits, old men in dark work clothes and guard uniforms, their slack bodies leaning on the rusted pillars and soot-covered white tiles as they wait for the train home.

Here we have a relatively "high resolution" sentence. As a reader, I know that we're in the subway by the time I reach the word "platform." I know that a lot of people are waiting for the train, and I have an active sense of their presence because the verb "crowd" makes them seem like they are doing something (even if that something is just pressing against each other and leaning on the vertical surfaces of the station), as opposed to the adjective "crowded" in the previous example, which doesn't imply action or an actor. I have a very developed sense of who is present and the range of differences they represent, but I also get the feeling (in "slack," "leaning") that they share the deep tiredness most people feel at the end of the workday. (Which also means I have a sense of what time of day it is.) And I have a detailed sense ("rusted," "soot-covered") that the station is very old and poorly maintained.

Some of these things I know simply because the writer has shown them to me (for example, that there are a lot of people on the platform). Others I know because I'm able to infer them from the details I've been shown (for example, that it must be between 5 and 7 o'clock in the evening). However, the writer has "told" me very little of what she thinks I should learn from the scene -- because when the scene is described well, she doesn't have to tell me. For example, the writer doesn't have to tell me that these people are tired: I can "see" it. She doesn't have to tell me that the station is old: I can "see" it. And so on.

Here's one last sentence:

The precinct is full tonight, huge bull-necked cops pushing their way through a slow herd of sweating bodies that fills the lobby from the sergeant's desk to the cracked glass of the front doors.

Now this may not be the finest sentence ever written, but it is certainly "high resolution." As a reader, I know where I am from the second word (in the US, the word "precinct" is used almost exclusively in connection with police stations) and, if not then, certainly when I reach the word "cops." I can feel how crowded the station is, and because the setting has been specified, I have some idea of who is in the crowd. I can feel the heat and discomfort of the crowd ("sweating"), probably because there are so many "bodies" in the room. I have a sense of the attitude and disposition of the crowd ("herd" suggests passivity and patience, but also stupor from the heat). I have a sense of how the people in the crowd are being treated ("herd" also suggests that they are being acted on, rather than acting of their own free will), and I have sense of who has power in this situation, since only the police are described as moving freely through the space. I haven't been told about these things -- nowhere in these lines does it say, for instance, that the police are controlling the crowd or that the people in the crowd are tired from the heat. Instead, the sentence is written in a way that lets me "experience" the scene using my five senses and draw my own conclusions from the experience.

The most effective descriptive writing tends to be "high resolution": it allows the reader to imagine the scene as if he were experiencing it and to understand what's going on in the scene by thinking about the details he's been given. The writer doesn't tell the reader what to think. Instead she guides the reader's imagination through careful selection of details and word choice, and she guides the reader's attention through the order in which those words are placed and those details are revealed.