Using Sensory Detail

Imagery is an author's use of vivid and descriptive language to add depth to their work.

It is used to describe something that can be seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled (the five senses)

Detail and diction is key when using imagery!

The sun’s beams shimmered and danced on the ocean’s gentle waves.

The fragrant roses drifted through the room like elusive ghosts.

Although they could not see outside the cabin, they could hear the eerie tapping, tapping, tapping, of his knife upon their door.

The cheesecake’s exquisite flavor traveled from his tongue to his spine.

The icy breeze gently brushed against the hair on her neck, and goose-bumps shortly followed.

He fumed and charged like an angry bull.

He fell down like an old tree falling down in a storm.

He felt like the flowers were waving him a hello.

The eerie silence was shattered by her scream.

He could hear his world crashing down when he heard the news about her.

The F-16 swooped down like an eagle after its prey.

The word spread like leaves in a storm.

The lake was left shivering by the touch of morning wind.

Her face blossomed when she caught a glance of him.

He could hear the footsteps of doom nearing.

The iron pot was a red as a tongue after eating a cherry flavored ring pop.

Though I was on the sheer face of a mountain, the feeling of swinging through the air was euphoric, almost like flying without wings.

Her blue eyes were as bright as the Sun, blue as the sky, but soft as silk.

The giant tree was ablaze with the orange, red, and yellow leaves that were beginning to make their decent to the ground.

The many men, so beautiful!

And they all dead did lie:

And a thousand thousand slimy things

Lived on; and so did I.

Within the shadow of the ship

I watched their rich attire:

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,

They coiled and swam; and every track

Was a flash of golden fire.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient

Mariner”

It was a mine town, uranium most

recently. Dust devils whirled sand off the

mountains. Ever after the heaviest of

rains, the water seeped back into the

ground, between stones, and the earth

was parched again.

-Linda Hogan, “Making Do”

She looked into the distance, and the old terror

flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna heard

her father’s voice and her sister Margaret’s. She heard

the barking of an old dog that was chained to the

sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer

clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the

hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the

air.

-Kate Chopin, The Awakening