Sensory Description: Touch/ Call For Submissions

Today, I’m beginning a series based on Sensory Description. Also, from September through May in each blog, I’ll continue to list a market that accept manuscripts from adult writers and will add a market for young writers. Happy writing.

Sensory Description: Touch

Action and dialog are important elements in storytelling. Just as important are sensory details. Descriptive writing allows us to paint pictures with words. In the next few blogs, I’ll discuss the use of senses in writing, beginning with the sense of touch.

Tactile descriptions are sometimes overlooked in unfolding a narrative, but the sensation of touch can make a scene more vivid. The character might stick her hand in a bucket of wet, cool slime. She jerks and slings her hand but the slime sticks. Kids will identify with the sensation of slime on their hands. Explaining how something feels adds another dimension to the story.

Tactile sensations can be used to up the tension in stories for older readers. Imagine a drip plop-plop-plopping onto a floor in a on a dark, cold winter night. The character slides his finger through the puddle and is surprised the liquid is warm. He turns on a light to discover blood trickling down his hand. The warm blood launches cold chills down his spine.

Consider the textures surrounding the characters. Describing the smoothness of the water or the roughness of the tree bark, allows readers to enter the fictional world.

Call for submissions for adult writers:

New themes for Calliope are here: http://www.cobblestonepub.com/guides_CAL.html.

Call for submissions for young writers:
AK eZine! We are looking for writers
Details: http://www.amazing-kids.org/old/ezine_12/ez.html

Check out more contests on my blog: http://nancykellyallen.blogspot.com/