Tag: How to write about a setting

Use All Five Senses to Describe Your … Junk Drawer

Use all five senses to describe your junk drawer

Or your junk closet. Or maybe your junk basement. We have a junk playroom, now that my kids are teens, but I couldn’t take a picture of that room or my husband would die of embarrassment. So I settle for asking to use all five senses to describe your junk drawer. Like the last two writing prompts, write down your first impressions as you look at the items in your junky space.

  • Sight: Lots of pencils. Gift card. Tools. Batteries. Foam darts. Bobbers. Etc.
  • Sound: N/A
  • Touch: All sorts of textures–smooth, scratchy, rough
  • Taste: N/A
  • Smell: Leather

How can I use these impressions? I could write a comedic story about a mom cleaning out the family junk drawer and horrors she uncovers. Or a teen searching frantically for an important item.

I like the idea of characters finding something unexpected. Such as teens or twenty somethings are cleaning out the house of their late great-grandmother and find an item in her junk drawer that sets them on a quest through her past. Or a husband finds an item so odd that he has to discover who in the family put it there. When everyone denies it belongs to them, he has a mystery on his hands.

For more prompts in your own backyard, click here.

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Using All Five Sense Describe Your … Bedroom

using all 5 senses describe your bedroom

Or any bedroom in your house that you might like to use as setting. My kids’ bedrooms contain a ton of inspiration, especially my youngest’s room, which makes a landfill seem orderly. Wouldn’t you love to read about the villain breaking into the hero’s house, only to get caught because he entered one of the kids’ bedrooms and wiped out by stepping on a Tonka truck? Using all five senses, describe your bedroom, as if it isn’t yours. It will make you see it with new eyes.

Here are the impressions from my bedroom:

  • Sight: Shaded from evening sun. View of backyard in shadows. Blue quilt. Faux pine furniture. Blue carpet. Family photos. A mirror. A ceiling fan. Lots of piles of books and papers.
  • Sound: Distant murmur of hear pump. Scraping on stone of someone working outside. Bird chirps
  • Touch: Cool
  • Taste: N/A
  • Smell: N/A

As I wrote this, I began to imagine someone waking in the evening, which would be odd. It immediately begs the question, why?

I lifted my heavy head from my pillow. Shadows had stretched across the house and backyard, deepening all colors to cool shades. The fan turned lazily, the air ruffling my hair.

Sitting up, I ran my tongue around my dry mouth.

I needed cool.

I pulled back my grandmother’s sky blue quilt and dropped lead-lined feet to the floor.

A few bird chirps penetrated the four windows facing the backyard.

Using the pine nightstand for support, I lunged into a vertical position.

I swallowed, my throat feeling sandy.

Might as well see if I could make to the bathroom for a drink.

If you want to write a scene set in a bedroom at night, stay up late and write your impressions then.

For more writing prompts about setting, click here.

What’s a familiar setting you can describe using all 5 senses?

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Use All Five Senses to Describe Your … Road

Use all 5 senses to Describe your road

Since I don’t have a lot of time to write, let alone research, I’ve come to rely on using settings I live in for stories. But sometime, we’re so used to our surroundings that we overlook them. So the next three writing prompts are to encourage you to open your eyes, perhaps literally, to your everyday surroundings, starting with asking you to use all five senses to describe your road. Or street. Or avenue. Or alley, as the case may be.

Sit in your yard, on your porch, on your doorstep, or stand on your sidewalk and take the time to let all five of your sense absorb the setting. Jot down what you perceive. Here’s the list for my road.

  • Sight: White bright sunlight. Dark shadows. Pure blue sky. White puffy clouds. Sunlight darkens as thick white clouds pass over it.
  • Sound: Bird calls. Passing cars. Distant traffic. Swish of river. Wind in tree leaves.
  • Touch: Leaves dry from morning rain. Wind on the back of my neck.
  • Taste: Nothing
  • Smell: Dirt. Grass. Thick, lily-like smell of honeysuckle blossoms.

Not use the above perceptions to write a paragraph or paragraphs about this scene. If you know what mood you want this setting to create, then choose the words that will accomplish that. If you’re not sure of the setting’s mood, write the description and see how it makes you feel. I’m going to go for a hint of foreboding, foreshadowing a coming conflict.

The morning was everything you’d want in May–bright sunlight, crystal clear blue skies, white puffy clouds sailing across it like fluffy schooners. The breeze ruffled the ends of my hair as I walked down our gravel drive to get the mail, the deep shadows of the budding rosebud trees tracing wild patterns on the fresh grass. As I reached the mailbox, the shadows melted into each other as a huge cloud blocked the sun. The wind chilled the back of my neck. I opened the back of the mailbox, and an envelope, written in cursive, stood out from the ads and bills.

I’d love to know how you use all five senses to describe your road.

For writing prompts on description, click here.

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