Writers need to enhance their stories by conveying moods and setting tones. One way to do this is through imagery. Imagery is much more than description. Description is stage dressing, simple details to give a sense of place. Description is literal and does nothing to move the story forward. Imagery moves beyond the stage dressing and engages all the senses to bring atmosphere to your work. It allows for vast subtext within your work and it pushes forward the action of your story by engaging readers. Imagery is at the heart of the wise writing advice,“Show, don’t tell.” Bring readers into the experience of your stories; don’t tell them what is happening.
In technical terms, imagery is about choosing a specific object not in a scene and substituting it for one that is there. It’s also about heightening the sensory details with sharper noun and active verb choices. Here is an example. “She walked along a bright green lawn” becomes “Her bare feet sunk into the fresh-from-the-dryer blanket masquerading as the summer lawn.” “She is” is general and gives us no sense of what the character is sensing. “Her bare feet sunk” give us an immediate sense of what our character actually is feeling. There is also a substitution for “bright green lawn” with “fresh from the dryer blanket.” This substitution sharpens the experience of the reader, enhancing the meaning of the sentence. The substitution also is personified by using the word “masquerading.”
Here is an imagery exercise to help bring life to your work. Write a scene about two friends saying goodbye for the last time somewhere outside. Now rewrite the same scene but only use sensory descriptions to convey the feeling of the goodbye. Use no dialogue. Tell us nothing. Sharpen every noun. Wind can have names like breeze, a Zephyr, a mistral, a Diablo, a Chinook, a hurricane. Remove linking verbs and add active ones.
Continue rewriting the scene. Think about everything visible. Put the choice details on the page. Consider the sounds, the breath of the characters and the sound of bodies touching. Go beyond the sounds and add sensory details. Include sensations like the physical contact of the two characters and the feel of the earth beneath their feet in this moment. Think about what can be smelled – sweat, soap, perfume, earth, dust and more. Engage every sense.
Now, practice substitution. Choose an object in a scene and substitute it. Create a metaphor to help create the mood of your scene. Practice this skill. Think about substitutions that reveal the emotion of your scene. In our example scene, if the friends part on the worst of terms, don’t make flowery, happy substitutions. The substitutions should serve the purpose of your story. For example, “a cloudless blue sky was overhead” might become “an unrelieved desert of indigo blazed overhead.” Choose substitutions that serve your purpose.
Imagery brings writing to life. Show us your literary world in its entire splendor.