Inventing Reality: A Guide to Writing Science Fiction

When writing description, authors typically should appeal to as many senses as possible in their piece. Doing so can create a textual richness that makes the story more real for readers.

The easiest of the five senses to write is that of sight. It’s easy because humans are by nature visual animals. Whereas some creatures rely more on scent or hearing when interacting with the world, humans depend on their visual acuity. Our brains in part evolved to manipulate abstract imagery so well because of our ability to see in three dimensions and in color.

Not surprisingly then, appeals to the sense of sight dominate most story’s descriptions. Consider Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “Dial ‘F’ for Frankenstein”, which contains a couple of excellent appeals each to our sense of sound and even touch. But the story contains dozens of appeals to the sense of sight: “Dr, John Williams, head of the mathematics division, stirred uneasily”; “Williams blushed, but not very hard”; “’Very well,’ he said, doodling on the tablecloth”; “He squinted balefully at the fluorescent tubes above the table; they were needed on this foggy winter day”; “Overhead, the lights continued their annoying flicker, which seemed to be getting worse” and so on.

When using sight in your stories, be sure that the descriptions are apt. Clarke, for example, uses the flickering of the lights, the fog and other visual images to show how humanity is slowly losing its control of the mechanical world to what is the equivalent of a computer that has just gained consciousness. In addition, don’t limit yourself only to sight. Humans do experience the world with the four other senses at the very same time they use their eyes. Describing what your characters hear, smell, feel and taste will prevent your appeals to the sense of sight from becoming monotonous.