Some rotten jerk stole my bed
Hey Reader,
Ever have a dream so nonsensical it couldn't possibly be happening, but you woke up anyway because it was so vivid and real?
I had a dream a few nights ago my childhood bedroom was robbed. Nothing else in the house was disturbed, just my room. Everything was taken except for a lamp and a few pieces of paper. The bandits had stealthily taken the solid wood desk, my HP Pavillion 8750 PC, my bed and pillows, and my entire Aerosmith CD collection straight out of my bedroom window.
I opened the flimsy wood door to my room, saw a few power cords lying there limply on the trampled beige 80s carpet, and then I woke up. But the feeling I remember was intense—like the feeling you get when you hear terrible news and everything from your tongue to your toes metallic. The weight of my heart dropping in my chest was enough to wake me up at 3 a.m.
None of that made sense. I was never robbed at home as a kid (Doug Moore once stole $20 from my pocket. I haven't forgotten that).
But I laid there for a while thinking about how lucky I'd be if I could capture that kind of scene, sensation, and emotion in all my writing.
Consider that for your own writing. Ask yourself, "Does this use all five senses?" It's a good way to make presentations, sales pieces, emails, reports, and just about anything else more human.
- If you're describing a recipe to someone, words like acidic, ripe, creamy, and tangy are apt descriptions but rarely get used.
- If you're explaning a new physical product, like a car, words like rich, fresh, melow, and clean go a long way when describing smell.
- Fuzzy, sheer, brilliant, and dull are useful words to describe sight. The British describe gray, cloudy days as "dull" in most weather broadcats. "Rotten" can double as a sight and smell sensation, too.
- Harsh, rumble, and crunching are good sound-oriented words. I used the word "crumpled" in a post this week about the state of journalism and was glad to have thought of it.
- Cuddly, frosty, numbing, and tight are good touch-oriented words. As in, "All the photos of cuddly babies on Facebook numb my interest in ever having one."
Keep that in mind and stay on the lookout for anyone carting around a heavy, solid-oak desk and an HP Pavillion PC. It might be from my imaginary theft.
Stay frosty,
Justin
Harter Research and Writing
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