Imagery in Writing

In a world of fast moving pictures, reels, Tiktoks, and gifs galore, sometimes it feels nice to be able to curl back up with a good book and take a story at your own pace. Whether it’s an old favorite or a new story to discover, we fall in love with reading because books take us to new worlds as ordinary as a diner in a busy city or as fantastical as a world with dragons and magic. That ability to craft a world for people to fall into and in love with is very highly based on the imagery. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but books are filled with millions of words and whereas that can be a daunting number to wrangle into a picture you want to convey, there are a few easy tricks to keep in mind while writing that are sure to make your story immersive and sure to carry your readers and their imaginations away.

As easy as it can be to say what something looks like, don’t be afraid to say how it smells and feels. A pie can have a flaky crust but telling the reader how delicious it smells will leave them salivating for more.

Rather than say he went into his garage for a tool, tell us what condition the garage is in. Does it have a smell? How does the light fall through the window? Telling us the way your characters keep their homes tells us a lot about them as well.

Don’t fall into the trap of writing paragraphs of descriptions without incorporating how your characters would interact with the scene you’ve set for them. A picture can be lovely but you’re crafting a scene and adding how the world you’ve made can be interacted with brings a whole new life to the story.

Write about your character interacting with your favorite places in your childhood. Have them inspect all the small details that you remember so fondly.