Block Buster
Ideas To Thwart Writer’s Block
This is one of the most enjoyable exercises I have ever taken part in. It was an activity suggested by someone in Royston Writer’s Circle, which I was a member of briefly about 10 years ago.
The goal of the activity is to practise describing a scene using all of your senses.
The activity works by rewriting the same scene repeatedly, using a different sense each time.
First, choose a scenario.
If you don’t already have one in mind, you can use a random scene generator. There are loads on the internet, but this one is quite nice.
https://randomwordgenerator.com/writing-prompt.phpFor most writers, the easiest and most natural sense to work with is sight. So we’ll do that first.
Describe the scene visually.
What does it look like? If you are writing from the point of view of a character, what do they see?
I’m going to have a go at this (genuinely, I am doing it from scratch).
My character has entered a building where a murder has taken place.
Warren pushed open the door. The room beyond was dim, poorly lit, the only illumination a streetlight. He paused on the threshold, allowing his eyes time to adjust. The details of the room came slowly into focus. Before him was a double bed, covered in tangled white sheets. At first, it appeared empty, but as the shadows and shapes coalesced, the lump underneath the duvet resolved into a small, person-shaped form. What he’d thought was a shadow in the centre of the lump became a dark stain.
The next easiest sense to describe is hearing. What does the character hear? Rewrite the scene focusing solely on the sound.
Warren pushed open the door. The hinges squeaked and the bottom of the door made a sliding noise against the thick carpet. What struck him first was the stillness. The electricity had been disconnected days ago and no appliances hummed; it was as if the house was holding its breath. As he waited for his eyes to adjust, he became aware of the shuck of distant vehicles on the wet tarmac of the nearby road. Somewhere a tap dripped, the only sign of life in the whole building. That and the faint rustle of his breath in his surgical mask.
The remaining three senses are trickier to describe, and might not be relevant to the scene you are writing. But you’d be surprised what you can come up with.
First, touch.
Warren pushed open the door. He felt the slight resistance as the bottom of the door pushed against the carpet. His hands were sweaty inside his latex gloves, and he was uncomfortably aware of his warm breath, trapped within his face mask. The bedroom window had been left ajar, and the cool night breeze ruffled his hair.
Taste and smell are very similar senses that often overlap. For obvious reasons, Warren won’t be licking anything he comes in contact with, but I can still find something.
Warren pushed open the door. He licked his top lip, coated in the salty tang of his sweat. From the moment he’d entered the house, his nose had hinted at what he would find. Now, standing on the threshold of the room, the smells familiar to every homicide detective filled his senses. The heavy metallic odour told him what had caused the dark stain in the centre of the duvet, and the sweet cloying stench informed him that whatever horrors had occurred here had taken place a couple of days previously.
The final step in this exercise is to take the best bits of each paragraph and blend them into a single passage. Be ruthless, and don’t feel you have to shoehorn something from each of the senses into the final product. If you don’t think taste adds anything, leave it out. If the house is silent, just say so, don’t scrabble around for extra detail or torturous metaphors. Try and keep it short, you want to transport your reader, not bore them! Once you’ve done that, edit the hell out of it!
Warren pushed open the door. Without electricity, the house remained eerily still, the only sound the rustling of his warm breath beneath his mask. The smells familiar to every homicide detective already told him what to expect, as his eyes adjusted to the unlit room. The bump beneath the sheets coalesced into a small, human-shaped form; what appeared to be a shadow in the centre of the duvet resolved into the source of the heavy, metallic odour.
The sweet, cloying stench that had alerted the neighbours as it drifted through the open window, told him that whatever horrors had occurred here had taken place days previously.
Remember the rules:
- Set yourself a time limit.
- Write without stopping, editing or overthinking.
- Write whatever comes to mind and don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense.
- It doesn’t matter if it has nothing to do with the scene that you are stuck on.
Do you have any suggestions for exercises to practise writing about the senses?
As always, feel free to comment here or on social media.
Happy writing,
Paul.
