Imagine two readers. One reads phrases like, “She walked into the bakery.” The characters do things and go places and exchange snappy dialogue. The other one reads phrases like, “The aroma of fresh-baked bread stirs great flutters in the chest of the girl with very large, odd, and attractive eyes that could shoot a man dead in love.” Most likely, both readers will abandon their books. In the first story, there is a litany of actions with no sensory anchor for the reader. In the second, sensory details clutter and obscure any hint of plot or character, and overwhelm the reader.

So how much sensory detail should a writer put in or leave out of a story? There are lots of theories riding in the ether, but there are no hard and fast rules. However, if you treat the senses as narrative tools rather than decoration, you’ll exercise the level of sensory integration that works for you and your story every time.

The Sensory Hierarchy

Ever notice that sight dominates not only sensory details in any descriptive writing but many of our proverbs as well? “Seeing is believing.” “Appearances are deceiving.” “Out of sight, out of mind.”

We even talk more about sight than any other of the five senses. Fun fact: in the last 100 years, there have been more studies done on vision than on any of the other senses. Hearing comes next but numbers fewer than half the vision studies. The gustatory sense, or taste, has had the least. Why do we feel sight is so important? Losing one’s sight alone isn’t life-threatening. But losing one’s sense of touch (pain in particular) is life-threatening. So why is sight still so dominant?

Sight is both personal and social. We share mutual glances, exchange looks, and make eye contact. It’s linked psychologically and socially to security and power. We recognize faces, surveil, stalk, “see the light,” and stare down our opponents.

No matter how important we believe our sight to be, our other senses make our worlds (real or imagined) more tangible and understandable. But if that’s true (and it is), how does the writer decide which senses to include in the story? 

Strategic Sensory Integration

Choosing which sensory details to use in a story, scene, and sentence based on your story’s emotional and narrative goals is called strategic sensory integration. It involves weaving different senses through the story instead of cataloging every detail a character encounters. This reflects how we perceive our world IRL. Which details we perceive are determined by our preferences, our personalities, the strength of our senses, our experiences, our skills, and our focus.

Purposeful selection of sensory details allows those details to do more than one thing for the story. A detective who studies a murder scene and notices a metallic taste in the back of his throat conveys one personality while a detective at that same scene who catalogs a metallic scent in the air presents another personality type. A skilled writer might also use the description to reflect an old unresolved trauma or to present the reader with a clever red herring.

Things to consider in selecting sensory details:

1. The Scene

2. The Viewpoint Character

3. The Setting

4. The Plot

5. The theme 

Guidelines for Strategic Sensory Integration

We don’t notice all five senses all the time in real life, so don’t put all five senses on every page. As a guideline, focus on the 20% of the details that carry the most impact in your story. Stick to two or three descriptors about 80% of the time. Use more than two or three during turning points or moments of significant meaning for your characters.

Remember, this is a guideline. Let your genre be your guide. You can add a little more description and still meet your readers' expectation. Having fewer sensory details might put your readers off.

Allow your first draft to be messy and less detailed if that comes more naturally to you. Make strategic sensory integration part of your revision process. 

Match Sensory Details to Emotion

When choosing sensory details that match the emotional tone of a scene, know what your scene’s primary purpose and tone need to be. What emotional impact will work best for this scene?  

What key details for the plot and the character’s arc are in this scene? Avoid labeling the emotions. Intentionally select physical responses that show what the viewpoint character feels. Anchor the emotions in the setting with mood words, dialogue cues that reflect the tone of voice or unspoken words, and action verbs that convey emotion.

Think about which sense is often associated with the emotion you want to evoke. For example, fear often involves sound or touch, people associate love with scent, and bright colors or sweet tastes and scents often convey happiness.

Identify the emotion in each of the examples below

The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smoldering, unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight. It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.” The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 

I heard the rain still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then my courage sank.” Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 

The heat lay leaden on the graveyard, squeezing its putrefying vapor, a blend of rotting melon and the fetid odor of burnt animal horn, out into the nearby alleys.” Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind 

Kendra took the wooden bowl, dipped it in the water, and drank. Sunlight gleamed off the surface of the water, dazzling her. The clear liquid tasted thick as honey, light as bubbles, rich as cream, tart as berries, and fresh as dew.”―Keys to the Demon Prison by Brandon Mull

The cold carved bone deep, fueled by the lash of the wind, iced by the drowning rain gushing from a bruised, bloated sky…. Dark Witch by Nora Roberts

Analyze the examples above. Identify the strong, specific words used and what story elements those words enhance.

What to Avoid

Don't rely on a single sense to convey the emotion in a scene or the entire story.

Avoid labeling emotions. Writing 'he was angry' is far less impactful than showing us his clenched fists and reddening face.

Clichés will make your writing stale.

Unusual comparisons, vague non-sensory nouns, and unique descriptions may make your sensory detail vague or incomprehensible.

Filter Sensory Details Through Character 

When you use sensory details filtered through the character, it gives your character depth and verisimilitude. Ask yourself what senses and details most align with the character’s experience, personality, preferences, skills, and training? For example, a chef notices food smells and tastes; a musician will probably interpret things as tones, rhythms, and beats; a carpenter notices structural things most of us don’t, and so on. 

Consider how the character’s medical conditions, past traumas, and family relationships affect the character’s perceptions. For example, a past trauma may make your character deathly afraid of fire or have a deadly fascination with fire. A character who survived a tragedy that claimed many of his friends and neighbors may have an over. A character who had a great relationship with her mother may see a certain color (or food) and think fondly of it because of associations with her mother. Yet another character who had a contentious relationship with her mother might hate that color because of the associations with her mother.

Look at the examples above again. What did the sensory details in those sentences tell you about the character?

What to Avoid

Avoid using generic sensory descriptions. “It was the worst thing she ever tasted” is too vague.

Avoid comparisons to things that don’t exist in the world and to things your character has never experienced. If you’ve created a character who grew up on a farm and has never seen a city, the sound of trucks and cars won’t startle her, but the speed of those vehicles might frighten her.

Layering Sensory Details

Layering in sensory details is as important as layering in the clues to a mystery or the acts that make your character grow. In real life, sensory details flood our brains. Your brain ignores a lot of the information. It notices the most significant detail first. That could be the life-threatening smell of smoke, or the flash of a blade, or a scent that evokes a pleasant memory. Then the brain gives you another detail and another as you need them. (Note: all this happens faster than I can write about it and faster than you can read.)

Do the same thing for your readers. Give them the one sensory detail that is most important in that moment. Seed the other details in decreasing order of importance.

What to Avoid

Avoid the habit of dumping all the sensory details at the beginning of a scene, with few or no more sensory details in the rest of the scene.

Don't use a lot of sensory details in scenes that aren't turning points. The more details in a scene, the more importance the reader assigns the scene.

The Sensory Callback

Use one or two sensory details to represent or emphasize your thematic content. Edgar Allan Poe was exceptional at this. Most of us remember the sensory details from his works like the clock with its pendulum, the raven, and the beat of the telltale heart.

Sensory details can be used to bookend chapters or scenes. They can be a motif throughout your story. Remember the great white whale in Moby Dick?

What to Avoid

Avoid forcing a sensory detail into a motif. Motifs work best when they fit the character, the setting, the theme, and the story.

Confession

Do I think all of this through for every scene I write? No. Most of the time, I immerse myself in my viewpoint character and write by instinct. However, in revisions I try to pay specific attention to the sensory details, particularly in my turning point moments, those scenes where my character must change something. By focusing on what this character will notice and when this specific detail will influence character and my readers, I give my story a strong chance of being one my readers can’t put down and can’t forget.

Expand Your Sensory Vocabulary

Less is more. Choose the sensory details you use for specific reasons that enhance your character and your story.

Study sensory writing in books. Some poetry is full of sensory details, but don’t overlook the books you like to read, the books in your genre. After you’ve finished reading the story, go back and highlight the sensory details. Study how they added tension or conflict, or revealed key pieces of information. Are there sensory detail dumps you skipped? Did the scene create an image in your mind? Were there details that instantly placed you in the setting? What details set the mood? What other things did the sensory details add to the scene and the story?

Read children’s books. Yes, that’s right. Many children’s books focus on sensory details because that’s how children perceive the world. There are children’s books like Cold, Crunchy, Colorful by Jane Brocket written to help children learn sensory words. Use those resources.

Use a photograph of a setting. Write a paragraph describing that setting using three of the five senses.

Practice in real life. Visit several new-to-you locations. At each location, take notes about what details you notice, when you notice them, and how you reacted or felt about each of those.

Rewrite the same scene five times, focusing on one sense at a time.

Learn more: Unforgettable Writing: Use All Five Senses to Add Emotion, Make the Most of Sensory Details in Deep POV, and Let's Get Sensory:Powering Scenes Using the 5 Senses.

Engage Your Readers

Have you ever put down a book because the sensory descriptions were either too overwhelming or completely absent? Your readers don’t have to gush over how lovely the sensory details were in your story. Some readers love stories where the writer uses details sparingly. Other readers love lush descriptions. The goal is to use sensory integration that supports your characters and your story and gives your reader the reading experience they desire.

What are your favorite resources for helping you with sensory details in your writing?

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About Lynette

Lynette M. Burrows is an author, blogger, writing coach, and Yorkie wrangler. She survived moving seventeen times between kindergarten and her high school graduation. She contends that alone qualifies her for writing stories of characters who struggle against the odds.

Book One, My Soul to Keep, and Book Two, If I Should Die, of her Fellowship Dystopia trilogy explore the struggles of a young woman fighting oppression. They are available at your favorite online book seller. Book Three, And When I Wake, will be published in December 2025.

When Lynette’s not writing she avoids housework and plays with her two yorkies. They live in Dorothy’s home state of Kansas. You can follow Lynette on her website or her Facebook page or Sign up for her newsletter.

Featured image purchased from DepositPhotos.

Second image by Kellie Nicholson from Pixabay.