Sight

Sight is the most used sense when trying to perceive our world. Likewise, of the five senses, visual descriptions are the most commonly found in writing.

 

We rely on sight - to understand, distinguish, and identify - and thus it's necessary to provide a strong visual image so that your reader can understand, distinguish, and identify all the fabulous elements of your words!

 

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  • Pictures convey only one sense: sight. That's why they're excellent help when practicing your visual descriptions!

 

We don't want to bore our readers. Right? And visual descriptions that consist of basic descriptions of size, shape, and color only will fail to grasp their attention: a jumble of single word adjectives is a big no.

 

Remember, verbs (and nouns) can describe as much as adjectives! 

 

  • “On the single strand of wire strung to bring our house electricity, grackles and starlings neatly punctuated an invisible sentence.” - John Updike

Here, Updike paints a fantastic image when describing the birds (grackles and starlings) as punctuating a sentence on the strung wire: conveying the image of neatly arranged birds like words in a sentence.

 

  • "Mysterious and sparkling, still dripping with melted snow, its feathery branches filling half the kitchen, the tree was our Christmas crown." —Laurie Lee, Cider With Rosie

Here, Lee does not focus on attributes such as size, shape, and color when describing the Christmas tree, but instead focuses on other visual details. (What was happening on/at the tree? How did the tree feel in the scene?)