Sensory Map.

The other day my writing workshop met for the first time. The workshop is the core of a writing program like the one I am in. But since it was the first day, there was not much to actually do.

We talked a lot about the way the workshop will work and about feedback and revision and blah blah blah, a bunch of other writerly stuff you don’t care about. We also did a writing exercise using a “sensory map” and while I do not generally like writing exercises, this one was okay.

A “sensory map” sounds way more fancy than it is. Just imagine that you have a piece of paper and you divide it up into sections for each of your senses (sight, touch, taste, etc.) and you focus on writing something for each of those senses. The idea being that we make automatic, subconscious writing choices about which senses we use and often forget about the others. You know how Hemingway wrote a lot about how things taste, but how I always forget to? A sensory map helps a writer work though some of that. Usually the map is aimed at a particular prompt. Our prompt the other day was “fireworks”.

This particular map had the sense of ‘Touch’ broken down into subcategories: skin, nerves, internal organs, limbs, fingers. That was kind of interesting because I had never seen one like that before.

Below is the exercise I ended up producing. I don’t think it is particularly good or anything, but is a thing which exists now, but didn’t a week ago.

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