USING ALL THE FIVE SENSES

Bring the settings of your story or novel to life by using as many senses as possible. Three examples below.

A LEAFY STREET IN A WEALTHY SUBURB

The street dreams in the sleepy afternoon sun. The great oaks and sycamores that shadow the manicured  lawns are still. Not a leaf trembles, not a bird stirs to search for food or to send a message to its neighbours. High above the roofs of the houses an aeroplane travels slowly across the haze blue sky, so high it cannot be heard. A piano tinkles in a room somewhere. A dog barks half heartedly. It is three o'clock and the street waits. For the children to race each other home from school. For the husbands to motor back from the City. For the houses to shake themselves awake after their afternoon nap.

URBAN SLUM - 1930'S

The street was almost empty. Head down, Jenny plodded stolidly towards the corner, eyes focussed on the stained and spotted pavements. Midday meals were being eaten behind net curtains, and the odours of fish and liver and frying fat and sausages fought each other down the long row of terraced houses. A greeting came from Mrs Fiskett, who was down on her knees scrubbing her front step. Her flowered pinny had soaked up the grey soapy water and her hands were reddened, almost raw. 

A NEGLECTED GARDEN

Years ago when the gardens were regularly tended they must have been beautiful, but now, like the house, they were abandoned and unkempt. Here and there the sweeping curve of a flower bed showed beneath the burgeoning weeds and in odd corners a few lank daisies struggled upwards through the summer strong nettles, but the unpruned roses were already gaunt and leafless, and ivy had strangled the gnarled old trees. Kathy ploughed through the orchard, unseen rotting apples squelching beneath her feet. The long grass billowed in damp hummocks around her legs.