Use all nine senses when you write

15th Jun 11

By Grant Butler.

The conference room is dimly lit and smells slightly musty. The crowd hushes as Emeritus Professor Don Ranly, PhD, takes the stage. Although speaking in San Diego in June 2011, his views on writing are rooted in an earlier era when people spoke to each other rather than through electronic devices; when people really observed, connected and told stories, rather than losing meaning through media and mediation.

I watched Ranly speak this morning at the International Association of Business Communicators Global Conference. As someone who has taught journalism over many years, many of them at the Missouri School of Journalism, and worked as a corporate writer, he reinforced with passion many of the principles good writers hold dear.

These principles include building stories around people; using comparisons; showing facts instead of telling readers what to think; writing actively; the joy of alliteration and other poetry; being comfortable writing in the second person to create a direct dialogue with readers; and conveying to readers "why they should give a rat's ass" about what you're saying.

Then Ranly came out with something I've never heard before, despite more than 20 years of writing and studying writing. He said that we should write using all nine senses. Nine? I thought we had five. No, the good writer should have nine.

The first five are the ones we all know: sight, sense, taste, smell and sound. To bring subjects to life for readers, we should note observations about each as we research. When you interview someone, describe the person you see – not just how they look, but what they're like to listen to and what their handshake feels like. Capture how they smell and taste, if it won't get you sacked, hit or arrested.

The remaining four senses are:

A sense of people. Find out what's interesting about others. Meet them in person. Get a true sense of them and let this come through in your writing.
A sense of place. Look around you. Where are you? What is the place? How do you describe it?
A sense of time. When are events occurring? Not just in terms of the time and date but more broadly. What era are you observing; what larger time?
A sense of drama. Ranly's ninth sense is about making stories exciting. They should have conflict and challenges and emotions. They should be dramatic.

Writing with all nine senses is both possible and fun. It certainly makes you look beyond the dry facts you're seeking to convey and provides a system for adding colour and interest to your copy.

Oh, and Ranly's final tip: don't plagiarise. The professor's argument against plagiarism is simply that "it's not nice". That says it all, really.

Grant Butler is Managing Director of Editor Group (www.editor group.com) The full program for the IABC event is available at www.iabc.com. Don Ranly is co-author of Telling the Story (4th ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2010), a book on writing.