Deep Within My Heart Lies Imagery

"Writing is the axe that breaks the frozen sea within us."  --Franz Kafka 

As writers, we need to be developing high standards through reading the writings of authors with high standards. The problem is that when you know you have a good story to write, you're also likely to be sure that you won't be able to write it in a way that would meet your high standards. And maybe your assessment of your abilities is correct--your writing won't meet your standards--for two possible reasons: you haven't written enough to hone your craft and style, or you've honed your craft and style, but because it's totally yours, it doesn't look like any other writer's work, and you lack confidence in your unique creations.

Whatever the reason, getting down the first sentence might feel like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill when he knows that each time he gets it to the top, it's going to roll down. Why struggle to get your words onto the page when you already know they won't measure up to your expectations, or anyone else's?

Before you walk away from the computer again (!), before you lay down your pen and turn your back on the blank paper lying on the table again (!), visualize the events of your story and ask yourself this question:

What images do I see, hear, smell, taste, and feel (touch) when I remember the events of my story?

Now you're ready to begin describing one of the images. You might hear your father saying certain things and your spoken responses. You might see the rotting porch of your childhood home, with elongated black spaces where planks were missing. You might smell the cinnamon in the gingerbread cookies your mother baked before Christmas. You might feel your dog's scaly nose and the wet lap of her tongue sliding up the side of your cheek. With these descriptions you are showing the reader what you want him or her to experience through imagination.

In a recent letter to me, James, a prisoner in a state correctional institution, describes prisoners as "T. rex's in a phone booth."

Songwriters use imagery in lyrics like these:

"Deep within my heart lies a melody, a song of old San Anton."

"Strolling with my girlie when the dew is pearly early in the morning.
Butterflies all flutter up and kiss each little buttercup at dawning."

"Stars shining bright above you.
 Night breezes seem to whisper I love you.
Birds singing in the sycamore tree.
Dream a little dream of me."

These lyrics are from my "Cake Song" on the most frequently-downloaded track from my Spiritland album:

"Sunny cake, funny cake, hearty cake, party cake,
Wishy cake, squishy cake, fatty cake, patty cake.
. . . icky, sticky, mucky, yucky, gooey, chewy, yummy tummy."

Here's my first paragraph of Chapter 1 in my book, Life with a Buckskinner, to be published soon:

"When I remember Whitey, I hear his rolling laughter. The first time was over the phone on a summer evening in my father’s home in Canton, Ohio, in 1973. I was standing in my stepmother’s shoebox-sized income tax office when I dialed the number shown in the Canton Repository want-ad for a “female singer with a working lounge trio.” The stranger who answered the phone was Whitey. I told him I was calling about his ad. I had a high singing voice; I could play a clarinet, a ukulele, and some piano; and I wasn’t young—I was 29 years old. He laughed and then in a voice resonant with kind smiles, said, “We’re not teeny boppers, either!” He was right. He was 35, and we couldn’t have known it then, but he’d already lived more than half of his life."

The above paragraph includes sensory images and a foreshadowing.

Here is my partial description of my first night on stage with Whitey's band. I contrast the location of the stage in that lounge with the location of stages in other night clubs where I've performed.

"The best thing about this room was the small stage rising up in front of everyone, in full view of every seat in the room. My place on the stage was out in front of the band, and Whitey had taught me in rehearsals to never turn around, no matter what happens in the band behind me. Onstage that first night, I might as well have been standing all alone in the bright lights at the end of a fashion show runway. I was so terrified, I forgot I was supposed to sing and faded off several times during the first song, “Girl from Epanema.” “Sing!” I could hear Whitey shouting over the music.

Having a stage out in front of everyone was, and still is, unusual for small night clubs. We had an inside joke in our band that the bandstand area is an owner’s afterthought. I’ve performed facing a wall; in front of the bathroom doors; looking at the backs of people facing the opposite direction; next to a popcorn machine spewing black noxious smoke; in front of an elevated TV set showing sports events that everyone was watching; beside a giant moose head (or some hairy dead animal with horns); between the dining room and the lounge, so the diners spent the evening looking at our backsides, and several times a night, some brazen woman on the dining room side would grab the drummer around the waist from behind, threatening to pull him off the stage backwards; up at the end of a huge empty dance floor where the people beyond it looked like slow-moving bedbugs; and on a rotating stage in the center of a huge convention-sized lounge. The last room was in a Holiday Inn in Michigan. On week nights, a few people crowded next to the bar, and the rest of the room was empty; still our band went round and round like a mechanical band on a merry go round, playing to an empty room through three quarters of each revolution. When we asked the manager to stop the stage from turning, she made the stage revolve faster until my head felt like it was going to drop off onto the floor and my stomach threatened to spill its contents.

The most memorable places my band, and later I, played were in rooms where the stage faced a flight of carpeted steps leading down from an upper entrance level. At the Holiday Inn in Bismarck, North Dakota, we giggled through our songs as customers slid down the stairs on their butts or tripped and bounced to the bottom, striking comical poses on the way down."

It's good practice and fun to write words that paint a picture of sensory images. Think of one image from an event in your life that you'd like to describe, and try these steps to see if they work for you:

1. Write a simple description in sentences or phrases.
2. Flesh out the images by replacing "be" verbs with colorful action verbs
3. Add specific adjectives to describe nouns, and if the adjective requires comparison (tall, big, little, long, short, etc.), either compare the object you're describing to something else to show the size or duration, or use a specific noun or adjective
4. Replace cliches with your figures of speech you make up
5. Keep working with the words to refine the picture until it comes into focus as your original piece of artwork

In the Comments section, give us your secrets for writing images and sensory descriptions. Would you add any steps to the ones above?  I'd love to read your descriptive passages and ideas showing images! Please share your ideas with us. If you've never published, posting your writing here is a healthy beginning.