How to Write from All Five Senses

I have a new article up at Indie Author News:

There’s a lot of good advice I didn’t take because I didn’t understand it at the time. Granted, taking advice before I’m ready for it isn’t smart–like taking the training wheels off my bike before I have a sense of balance. But now I have those training wheels off (although I haven’t stopped training), and I need to re-look at a lot of that advice.

Right now, I’m studying the use of all five senses in my writing. When I first heard the advice, I blew it off. “That’s so obvious, duh!” I said…but didn’t do it. Maybe because it never clicked. Maybe because it was explained poorly. Maybe because I wasn’t listening.

So why is it important?

Not because it makes my fiction “more realistic.” After all, it’s stuff we’ve made up; why is being “more realistic” important (especially in a fantasy or in a surreal work)?
It’s important because it’s easier to control your readers’ thoughts and feelings when you use sensory details. Or, if you want to sound less like a mad scientist and more like a literature professor, “to help your readers see the world in a new way.”

Granted, this comes out the morning after I just finished reading a Stephen King book, so I’m a bit depressed on my writing skills.  But the advice is really, really good.  And many thanks to Dean for giving it to me 🙂