{"id":8420,"date":"2024-11-28T17:06:28","date_gmt":"2024-11-28T17:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/indiecateditorial.com\/?p=8420"},"modified":"2025-03-02T15:31:36","modified_gmt":"2025-03-02T15:31:36","slug":"why-sensory-details-matter-in-fiction-and-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indiecateditorial.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/28\/why-sensory-details-matter-in-fiction-and-memoir\/","title":{"rendered":"Why sensory details matter in fiction and memoir"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video height=\"1080\" style=\"aspect-ratio: 1920 \/ 1080;\" width=\"1920\" controls src=\"https:\/\/indiecateditorial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Simple-Minimalist-Travel-Vlog-YouTube-Intro-1.mp4\"><\/video><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When writing your early drafts, you don&#8217;t need to worry too much about the nitty-gritty details of locations and character experience. You have the basic foundations of your story to lay down first. With each redraft and polish, you can add and remove things, reshaping your novel or memoir into its ideal form. But why are sensory details so important? Why should the reader care about scent and touch, etc?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The truth is that the human brain actually reacts to these details as if experiencing them for real. If you give great immersive sensory details, you help your reader inhabit your characters and enter the world of the story, leaving the real world behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sensory details &#8211; and all senses matter &#8211; help ground your story in realism. You can show character reactions through sensory details, and show landscape and location too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Obviously, you don&#8217;t want to overdo it with sensory description. It&#8217;s about maintaining a balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sensory detail doesn&#8217;t just relate to the way the characters experience the outside world though. It also relates to their own bodies reacting to emotion. Here I would recommend a great book that helps authors to use better descriptions for emotional states. It helps you to show and not tell. I&#8217;ve recommended it to a lot of my clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" id=\"title\"><strong>The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer&#8217;s Guide to Character Expression<\/strong> by Puglisi and Ackerman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Opening chapters developmental edit deal!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you want to check out your use of sensory information in your manuscript, or other issues, you can opt for an opening chapters developmental edit. This allows me to go over the first 12,000 words of your manuscript and give you the usual feedback on plot, character, theme, use of viewpoint, tone, dialogue issues (if any), whether you open your book in the right place, plus smaller detailed feedback that you can then apply to the rest of your manuscript.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/indiecateditorial.com\/index.php\/opening-chapters-developmental-edit\/\">The opening chapters developmental edit<\/a> is usually \u00a3150 for 10,000 words. The current deal, running until the end of the year, is \u00a3120 for the first 12,000 words. You will receive a report running to thousands of words, plus a copy of your manuscript with comments in the margins. Feel free to contact me at <a href=\"mailto:karen@indiecateditorial.com\">karen@indiecateditorial.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sign up for posts on writing and editing!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I post once a week at my Substack. Content includes new blogs, writing competition news, and more. You can sign up below. The emails go out on Monday or Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\">\n  <iframe src=\"https:\/\/indiecateditorial.substack.com\/embed\" width=\"480\" height=\"320\" style=\"border:1px solid #EEE; background:white;\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When writing your early drafts, you don&#8217;t need to worry too much about the nitty-gritty details of locations and character experience. You have the basic foundations of your story to lay down first. With each redraft and polish, you can add and remove things, reshaping your novel or memoir into its ideal form. But why [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[137,129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-developmental-editing","category-writing-advice"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why sensory details matter in fiction and memoir - IndieCat Editorial<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sensory details are an important component of good fiction and memoir writing. 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