13 Tips for Young Writers / Day Six: Touch All The Senses

By Dr. K. Mark Hilliard

Day 6: Touch All The Senses

We’re all touched by each of our five senses—smelling, tasting, hearing, touching, seeing—so tell your young writer to try to include something related to all the senses in his or her story.

You can say something like this:

If someone can read your story, where you talk about the smell of a rose, and they can actually smell the rose in their head, you are becoming a good writer. And there is also a place for helping people feel things when you write—touching their emotions, making them happy, sad, angry, afraid. You do this with words, with nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Action Item

Ask your young writer to pull out his or her journal and describe a few things, trying to touch as many of the senses as possible. Food is a great place to start, since it touches all our senses. A room is a good one too, like the kitchen.