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Invitation to Write: Sensuous Writing #Covid19 #creativewriting

March 22, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Dur­ing this time of coro­n­avirus, I invite my read­ers to write. Many of us are shel­ter­ing at home, why not use cre­ativ­i­ty to stay calm?

I will try focus on one aspect of cre­ative writ­ing so the you can exper­i­ment with that element.

Today, let us look at “Sen­su­ous Writing.”

I am shar­ing a YouTube tuto­r­i­al about this. Click here:

or here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5WnVQLHLMg&feature=youtu.be

And here is a reprint of an ear­li­er write­up from my Trav­el Blog:

~~

This morn­ing let’s look at an aspect of Cre­ative Writ­ing — “Sen­su­al Writ­ing.” I’m not talk­ing about sex, dear Read­ers, rather I’m refer­ring to writ­ing that engages the read­ers via the five sens­es. The writer allows the read­ers to see, smell, hear, feel, taste.

Sen­su­al Writ­ing ties in with a Rule in Cre­ative Writ­ing which is: Show, Don’t tell. The writer is giv­ing details so that the Read­ers can more active­ly par­tic­i­pate in the “fic­tive world” of the writer.

It makes one’s work more com­pelling and inter­est­ing. In a way it forces the writer to think in terms of Scenes, which can be stronger than the Nar­ra­tive way of writ­ing. Writ­ers say that the Scene is the basic unit of storytelling.

Sen­su­al Writ­ing can be inte­grat­ed in oth­er forms of writ­ing, not just Fic­tion Writing.

Let me give you some examples.

1. The fol­low­ing excerpt allows the read­ers to see, feel, and taste:

“It was a bit of par­adise up there, with tena­cious suc­cu­lents in Chi­nese blue and white pots, a moss-cov­ered foun­tain, three plan­ta­tion chairs, and most impor­tant, the tam­bis tree that hung over the back por­tion of the veran­dah. They didn’t even have to climb; all they had to was reach out and pluck all the fruit they want­ed. They ate while they gath­ered fruit and Ines remem­bered the pleas­ant feel of the waxy cov­er and the delight of sweet juice when her teeth sank into the spongy pulp.” ~ from The Old Man­sion Near the Plaza: Nov­el Excerpt

2. The fol­low­ing excerpt allows the read­ers to see, hear, and feel.

“The most mourn­ful time in Tay­tayan was sun­set. As the sun sank into the sea, it shot forth bril­liant hues of red, splat­ter­ing the sky, mak­ing your soul catch at your throat. Then you blinked and the sun was gone, and the world that had been aflame was sud­den­ly plunged into a somber dark­ness. The sounds of the crick­ets would crescen­do in the dark­ness and your spir­it quaked at such sad­ness.” ~ from When the Rain­bow God­dess Wept 

3. The fol­low­ing excerpt allows the read­ers to smell, see, hear.

“A breeze waft­ed in the faint sweet smell of molasses from the dis­tant Sug­ar Cen­tral. They sighed and set­tled com­fort­ably into their chairs. From where they sat, they could look out at the pool, ten­nis court and sprawl­ing gar­den. It was Melisande who saw it first — “Look, Ines! I’ve nev­er seen any­thing like that before. The tree is glow­ing.” She was point­ing at the ylang-ylang tree that had flick­er­ing fire­flies all over it.” ~ from novel-in-progress 

  1. The fol­low­ing allows the read­ers to see:

“In the dis­tance I could see the Eif­fel tow­er, its gray lat­ticed met­al gleam­ing in the ear­ly morn­ing sun. Even though it was sum­mer, the trees and bush­es of Paris were still in bloom. The paulow­n­ia trees sur­round­ing the Eif­fel were heavy with pur­ple flow­ers.” ~ from novel-in-progress

For your own exer­cise, describe how fresh-baked cook­ies look, smell, and taste. If you want to post that in this blog, send it to me at cbrainard@aol.com.

That’s our short les­son today about Sen­su­al Writing.

My book Fun­da­men­tals of Cre­ative Writ­ing looks at oth­er aspects of writ­ing, and is avail­able in Kin­dle https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004FGMT5Y

~~

Read also

Explo­sion and Draw­ing as Writ­ing Exercises

Your Writ­ing Workspace

The Impor­tance of Keep­ing a Jour­nal and My Pink Lock and Key Diary

The Impor­tance of Sen­su­al Writing

Vin­tage pic­tures that help me write my nov­el — Paris, Barcelona, Ubec

How to Write a Nov­el #1

How to Write a Nov­el #2

For fic­tion, read:

Talk­ing About the Woman in Cholon

Old Man, by Bri­an Ascalon Roley

Song from the Moun­tain, by Erlin­da Kravetz

The Turk­ish Seam­stress in Ubec 

 Win­ning Hearts and Minds- anoth­er chap­ter from Brainard’s nov­el Magdalena

The Black Man in the Forest

The Old Man­sion near the plaza

Mani­la with­out Verna

Flip Goth­ic

1943: Tiya Octavia 

Tags: cre­ative writ­ing, writ­ing, fun­da­men­tals of writ­ing, sen­su­al writ­ing, cre­ativ­i­ty, Coronavirus

Filed Under: Nonfiction, Uncategorized Tagged With: covid19, creativity, how to write, writing

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Welcome!

I am a daugh­ter of the Philip­pines and an adopt­ed daugh­ter of Amer­i­ca. I have also trav­eled to many places so I am also a daugh­ter of the Earth. My expe­ri­ences have found their way into my sto­ries, which try to depict char­ac­ters caught in impor­tant moments in their lives, sit­u­a­tions that force them to act, make deci­sions, change. I try to see the world from my own point of view, not the dom­i­nant West­ern one, thus my inter­est in his­to­ry, cul­ture, and set­ting. But my char­ac­ters car­ry my sto­ries; they are the most impor­tant in my sto­ry-telling. I have to dive deep into them to under­stand their human­i­ty – their good­ness as well as their bad­ness, their beau­ty as well as their ugli­ness. Just like us. Just like each of us. I need to know where they came from, where they are now, so I under­stand where they are going. Just like us.

Please read my full biog­ra­phy here

 

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