The 5 Senses

Good Morning all! Hope everyone's weekend was fantastic and we're in the "write" mind to write. To begin with I want everyone to start off with a quick exercise. Time yourself for one minute and just write down anything that come to mind. They could be objects, sentences, or even names. So, ready...set...GO!

Once you have compiled your list put it next to you and take a new sheet of paper. I like to write in a notebook but everyone has a different style in how they write. You should do this exercise every time you sit down to write. You don't have to used the words you wrote down, but hold on to them you never know when you can use them in another piece.

Today I want you to focus on your 5 senses; sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. Pleasing the senses of the reader is the surest strategy for reaching the mind and the soul. We will be doing a few exercises dealing with the 5 senses but today I want you to focus mainly on color.

I wrote a poem entitled, Let Them Stain Her Face. It's a poem about my mother and her morning routine. I use many senses in my piece but also incorporate little spurts of color into the poem

to create a setting and a mood.

Let Them Stain Her Face

Steam rises to the top of the old black stove

creating brown semi-circles

adding to the mold building around the ran.

The whistle howls like a wolf in the night.

My mother enters through the open doorway, the overhang laced with twigs and berries.

Printed kitten flannel pants and her favorite Mets hoody,

curls dripping down her neck, still wet from the bath

trailing Banana Vanilla down the hallway.

Her socks, ice-skating over the beige tiled floor

racing against each other to the screeching black kettle.

In the cupboard she reaches for my Grandmothers; sugar bowl

all the way up to the top shelf, in between the pink Pepto-Bismol bottle and Tums.

She places it on the emerald marble countertop.

The opalescent crystals scattered, running from the boiling water.

My mother grabs a package of lavender tea and dips it in a green travel mug.

The scolding water sings from the mouth of the kettle

steam and lavender swirling together

her delicate hands creep towards the fridge pulling out the Organic Cow

some new crazy health product she bought

She pours the silky cream into the mug, creating rings of white and brown.

Cupping the mug in both hands she sleep walks towards the marble sink

she breathes in the aroma through her freshly powered nose

glances up out the window just in the nick of time.

She catches the first glimpses of sunbeams peeping their heads through the trees

staining her face a shade of Clementine.

So as you can see my poem incorporates sight, smell, sound and movement. I tried to use color to move the reader along and give the impression of a warm home and create vivid images.

In Edgar Allen Poe's work, The Masque of the Red Death, Poe uses color as a major focus point.

"There were seven--an imperial suite. In many palaces, however such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the wall on either hand, so that the view of the whole extant is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have been expected from the duke's love of the 'bizarre.' The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor of which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the easter extremity was hung, for example, in blue-- and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange-- the fifth was white--the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes were scarlet--a deep blood color."

The work continues to describe other details, but the details about the rooms themselves are so important to the success of the work. It gives the reader guidance in how to envision the setting and proceed with the story.

So now it's your turn. I have given you two examples of pieces that use color. So have fun, don't get frustrated. You don't have to finish it in one sitting. Work on it for a little bit, and then take a break. Read it, re-word it, just make it your own. But most importantly have fun with it! Good luck, happy writing!