Description is the most difficult aspect of writing for me—which is funny, because I am so visual. It seems that because I see it so clearly in my own mind, I am very comfortable leaving things out or being lazy with the details.
So, continuing last week’s writing exercise to practice sensory description, let’s spend a week on a scavenger hunt for telling details in our day-to-day lives.
The Exercise
Way back in the very first post to this Writing Notebook section, I started a narrative journal to practice recounting events in logical order. I wish I could report that in the intervening 20 weeks I have kept up with this journal faithfully… but it has actually been pretty spotty. It has been fun anyway, though!
Get out your journal (dusting it off as necessary if you’ve been neglecting it), and make a point to carry it around with you this week. Or grab a pocket notebook to jot things in, instead, and set out on your normal routine as if on a new adventure.
In each location, methodically pull out your notebook and try to capture one telling detail about the place, a person there, the sounds you hear, or the event that’s happening. It needn’t be even a complete sentence. Just list a couple words or phrases.
It might be the rooms of your house, or your car. The rooms of the the building you work at, or the school you go to, or a parking lot. It could be about a barista, a coworker, a random person you drove by. Or listen for the quality of a voice in a song, on a phone call, in the background at a busy cafe.
The purpose of the exercise is to practice paying attention, and simply being extraordinarily interested in the ordinary. Use your imagination, and channel your inner Harriet the Spy.
No one will mind if you throw in a sketch or two, no matter the quality. Drawing is a form of observing.
Bonus: At the end of the day, or end of the week, look back through your jottings. Find one or two that stand out, and craft these into sentences.
Feel free to practice in the comments!
That’s it for this week, folks. Stay shiny and write on!
—AF