In my recent blog post, 5 Ways to Create Visceral Images in Writing, I talk about the five things I use or describe when trying to evoke strong, emotional images. As a teacher though, I think about how it's easy to say, "Using fruit and describing the fruit creates visceral imagery" but then sill have readers thinking, uhh... I also imagine the many ways people can even describe fruit and have it still be boring. 

In my first blog about this, I go over some examples in my own writing on how I employ the strategies I talk about. In this post though I'm going to give a few more examples from books written by other people, and then offer you a free worksheet that will help you practice using this type of language in steps so you can produce a visceral image on your own at the end.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

• "Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world" (1).
  

Here, McCarthy focuses on landscape and colors to describe the setting. I absolutely love the use of glaucoma because not only is this an unusual word to use here (which grabs readers' attention), but it really does a great job of of poignantly describing exactly what this world is looking like with no guesses.

The Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

• "The flames sawed in the wind and the embers paled and deepened and paled and deepened like the bloodbeat of some living thing eviscerate upon the ground before them and they watched the fire which does contain within it something of men themselves inasmuch as they are less without it and are divided from their origins and are exiles" (255).
  

In this quote, McCarthy uses such strong verbs like sawed, paled, an deepened. Again, this scene focuses on describing the natural world. By focusing on the nouns (flames, embers, and ground) and what they are doing by using these strong verbs, it's easy to picture what's happening here.

Beloved by Toni Morrison

• "She might be hurrying across a field, running practically, to get to the pump quickly and rinse the chamomile sap from her legs. Nothing else would be in her mind. The picture of the men coming to nurse her was as lifeless as the nerves in her back where the skin buckled like a washboard" (12).
  

I love that Morrison says, "Rinse the chamomile sap from her legs." In this quote, she utilizes both the natural world and the body, and words like rinse, sap, and legs really paint the setting and texture. To top it off, we've got "skin buckled like a washboard" and ahh! What a fantastic image. Again, the verbs and the simile! Utilizing language that is surprising (but still makes sense as a comparison) is a great way to create visceral images.

• "But to be looked at in turn was beyond appetite; it was breaking through her own skin to a place where hunger hadn't been discovered"  (138).
  

This quote focuses on the body - appetite, breaking through skin, hunger. Imagine what being looked at feels like here. This description is so palpable and interesting. It does so much more than just saying, "But to be looked at was needed." Right? Using the language of the body really amplifies the scene and the craving for human connection.

American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis

• "Torri thinks Tiffany is coming and grinds her own cunt harder onto Tiffany's mouth, smothering her screams, but when I look up at Torri, blood covering my face, meat and pubic hair hanging from my mouth, blood pumping from Tiffany's torn cunt onto the comforter, I can feel her sudden rush of horror" (303).
  

Throughout the book American Psycho, many horrific murders are described, which provides many opportunities for visceral language, especially about the body. In a scene that is both sexual and violent, Ellis uses the destroying of the body to develop his character and themes. The way he describes the body's destruction is also very visceral. As I talked about in previous blog posts, destroying the body is especially transgressive, and now I'm showing you how it's also visceral! This image of a human's meat in someone's mouth is so animalistic that it immediately creates discomfort.

So how do you write your own visceral language? Language that provides your readers with the exact scene you want? Language that evokes emotion? Language that stands out as breathtaking?

This worksheet quickly reviews the five techniques I use when writing visceral scenes, and then offers scaffolded steps that will help you write your own visceral scene. First you'll brainstorm helpful words to use, then work on writing short scenes.

Download the worksheet below!

If you're interested in sharing anything you wrote, post it in the comments below.

Works Cited

Ellis, Bret Easton. American Psycho. United States, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2010.
McCarthy, Cormac. Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West. United States, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2010.
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road: Pulitzer Prize Winner. Ireland, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2007.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Spain, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2006.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words – and while we probably don’t need that many words, us writers can use some number of words to create our own pictures (and feelings) out of nothing, which is even better. You don't want just any picture though; you want a picture that is visceral and gripping and to create a gritty, beautiful, and emotional image, you've got to give those gritty, beautiful, and emotional details that will paint that picture you want.

These are my 5 favorite ways to create visceral images in writing.

1. Use the five senses

Most writing classes and writing advice will tell you to incorporate sensory details. This is how you “show”. This is how you paint a picture with words. This is how you put a reader in the scene, so they’re right alongside the characters.
 
The five senses: Sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.
 
You don’t let the reader figure these things out on their own, but you guide them. By incorporating these specific details, you paint the exact picture you want the reader to look at.
 
“He let me in the threads of yesterdays.”
I used such a small detail like threads to incorporate the element of touch. Also, think about how different this picture looks compared to something like: He told me his memories. What makes the line above more visceral?
 
“You’ve never used your teeth to drink the juice of berries.”
I can imagine what it looks like for someone to try and bite down on a berry with their teeth, then swallow the juice, but also imagine the taste of the ripe berries' juice here.
 
Part of this comes down to word choice. Pick one or a few words to focus on that strongly connect(s) to one, or more than one, of the five senses. Your readers don't know anything about the scene except what you show them. They don't know which details are significant or emotional, but by picking senses (or an object that appeals to the senses) to describe in depth, you make sure they do.
 
(Writing poetry will help you practice this, as you'll in some of my examples below see below. You’re focused on way less lines, and really hitting each of those lines home.)

2. Use the natural world

The natural world can be beautiful and dark and complex and so many things that can complicate and heighten an image you're creating. While I don't claim to be an accomplished poet (I mostly write and publish fiction), sometimes I write poems. I’m going to share three poems I’ve written because in each of them I incorporate elements of the natural world, and you can see why I did that and how those details create more visceral images. In the first, I reference honey, harvest, and sunshine to work as symbols. In the second, I use twilight, cliff, and night to offer create a strong setting for what is otherwise a piece that doesn’t have a setting (all of these poems are focused on emotions). In the third, I’m talking about lilacs and rocky hills.

Most of the poems I write are based on an experience or emotion and they try to recreate that emotion as opposed to tell a story. By using the natural world, I can still create a sense of place, and draw on the five senses (scent, taste, sight, touch, smell). Without saying “this smells like X, or this taste like X,” I still offer those sensory details by just referencing things in nature that inherently smell or taste like those things.

Like I mentioned above, referencing nature sometimes does double duty. It may create a sense of place, and it definitely incorporates sensory details. Not only do these details strengthen the picture I'm trying to create, but these images work to create that crude emotional response in readers.

3. Color
(describing colors, sure, but I’m also talking about using grapheme-color synesthesia to write texts). This one probably doesn't apply to most people, but it's definitely in the top 5 for me.
 
Yes, using colors and telling readers what something looks like is great – it’s sight, one of the five senses, but when I talk about creating visceral images with colors in writing, I mean something a little different. I’m talking about a form of synesthesia.
 
Synesthesia is when someone experiences one of their senses through another (like tasting color or seeing sounds). I have grapheme-color synesthesia. This is when someone associates a color with a symbol such as letters and/or numbers. For example, the letter e is a dark, navy blue for me. The number one is a very pale yellow, close to white. The name Justin is a blue. I don’t know why these things are what they are, they just are (and the colors associated may be different for different people).
 
I’ve noticed that my synesthesia affects the things I read and write. I find that I especially love books or stories or poems that use words with strong colors, and when all of the words in the piece tend to lean toward a cohesive color scheme (like the story tends to use words with colors that create a black, red, and silver color scheme or a variety of navies and purples). This probably isn’t anything the writer’s thinking about when they do it, and even if they were thinking about it, they probably weren’t writing words that fit the same colors I see, BUT when it works for me, it really works for me.
 
I also find that when I write, and a piece isn’t working for me, it’s probably because the colors are too loose. I need to tighten up words so they create a stronger color scheme.
 
So this number is a very personal way that I create visceral images in my writing, because it doesn’t apply to most people (unless you also have this). (Side note, I love when musical artists have synesthesia because it’s great to see it in their writing. I also have chromesthesia, which is associating colors with sounds – I use these forms of synesthesia to make really great mix CDs that I’ll eventually write about on this blog).
 
Anyway, here's another poem (because it’s easy to focus on a small, complete text)

Worship these wounds at the altar,
smeared,
tender and sore,
and once the sacrifice-
a blood war that
washes me in
memories that bring me back
to a time when I should have said
yes instead of
taking the long way home-
is over,
we will host a blood drive
to share the wealth.
And as everyone leaves,
admiring their new robes
made of crimson,
Your Majesty will grin at his
sophisticated sense of fashion.
 

Many of the words in here are dark colors for me (which align with the subject matter). Worship, wounds, tender, sore, sacrifice, blood, war, memories, everyone, majesty, and sophisticated are reds, blacks, or blues that are nearly black. Words like alter, back, and admiring are lighter – yellows or browns, but paired with the majority reds and blacks it almost creates a small highlight on the colors.
 
Additionally, my short story “If the Rainbow Exploded” published on PANK leans into grapheme-color synesthesia.
 
This probably sounds wild, BUT I swear it’s a thing, and it’s an element of how I, personally, find writing that feels concise. It’s also probably why I frequently use fragments in my stories because extra, small words (like prepositions and things) add in a whole bunch of extra random colors that don’t work so well.

4. Fruit

Fruit, I’ve found, is a beautiful (and easy) way to pull in the five senses, and it also just makes writing sensual. This can lean into sexuality, or not, but I find that it definitely creates visceral images, regardless of the route you’re taking it in.
 
The poem below uses a clementine to really draw out touch, scent, and sight and provides so many beautiful images. Fruits are great symbols, and here, I’m talking about the way that fruit flies are attracted to the fruit, and this image is a metaphor for the dirty nature of having to remove the things we don’t want. Over and over again.
 
Anyway, I absolutely love cheating with the use of fruit, because it can incorporate many senses, can act as a strong symbol or metaphor, and can paint a beautiful, poignant picture for a reader.

A sweet clementine
feels tough to the
soft fingers
that strip it,
but it’s an easy peeler,
yawning open as the finger
pulls apart the skin,
ready to climb inside,
where it’s saccharine,
smooth and glossy, and
oils scented like fresh
suck the palm.

Eggs are laid
on the surface,
feeding on fermentation
and swallowing the juice.
They pull out suffering from the
vulnerability.
Hundreds of
swarthy fruit flies
swarm and infest.

Cut out the damaged flesh now.

This is the cycle of
life.

5. The body

Referencing number two, number four, and the poem above:
the body is another way to bring in the natural world, create strong images, and incorporate the senses (think of the colors, textures, and shapes of different body parts. Think of how many emotional experiences we associate with things like eyes, lips, ears, and hands). The body is also so personal. In "Bodies and Permissions: Breaking Rules & Conduct" and "How to Destroy the Body", I talk about all the ways the body can be used and broken to elicit strong feelings (and create social commentary). Consider which body part(s) you want to describe, and which details will help convey the mood you want (the thesaurus can be great!)
 
Even in the poem above, I reference fingers and talk about stripping, and climbing.
 
It’s again an easy way to do double duty and include multiple senses at once.
 
In my short story "Fat Girls" published on Hobart, I use the female body, messages American culture sends about the female body, and the insecurities this causes to write a story. I try to use the way bodies are seen and represented to create memorable imagery that helps convey the story’s themes. It's not a pretty story, but I don’t claim to write pretty stories.
 
The body does give writers many avenues though to paint a strong, meaningful, and visceral picture. Images that use the body well can create substantially thought-provoking content that invites readers to explore its impact (and your theme(s)).

If there’s anything you should take away from this: be specific.
Each number on this list requires you to be very specific in your word choices and images:
What part of nature, what type of fruit, what body part?
What is the texture or shape of the collar bone you described? Does describing the collarbone show how poor the person is because they can't afford to eat, or that this person is sick, or has an eating disorder?
How does the fruit feel? What does it taste like? Is it pulpy? Do the seeds press hard into someone's fingers?
What is the texture of the wildflower? Where is it growing? Why is that significant?
What is in your character's garage? Is it an old Santa Claus figuring? Does he have a busted nose? How can you describe that?

Once you pick those out your specific words and images, get even more specific in the way you describe their taste, sent, and feel. Do they sound like anything? What do they look like? Make sure the words you use paint this picture (and if you’re so inclined, paint literal colors too for your grapheme-color folk).

A few of my writing friends recently pointed out how well I maintain my writing. They said I “keep at it,” and I guess I do. I write most days, but I told them I haven’t always been this way, because I haven’t.

I do write a lot now, but there have been periods in my life where that wasn’t the case. I’d go days with struggling. Or months. Or, sometimes, years. After writing for close to three decades, I’m going to share with you what has worked for me when I’ve found myself in an uncomfortable hole, and when I’m feeling not myself because I'm not writing. While some of my ideas might seem basic and common (although I’ll actually tell you how and why to do them), many of the ideas on this list will be new ideas that offer an action plan. They should inspire you, because these will be the things you want to write about, even if you don’t know it yet.

5. Just do it
Okay, so I will steal this one from other articles. But I’ll give you some concrete ways to ‘just do it’, even when you don’t feel like you can.
 
When I realized how much of myself I was missing by not reading or writing for a few years, I decided that it had to change. I needed to write, and regularly. So I challenged myself – to write one flash fiction piece a week. This number was manageable. I could write 1,000 words or less in a week (although it did take time to figure out how to write flash fiction – I had to learn what to focus on in a story since I could *only* write ~1,000 words!).
 
1. So when I tell you to “just do it”, I also first tell you to give yourself a required word count/limit. This can be flash fiction at around 1,000 words per week, or it might even be less, at 500 words per week. Up to you and your schedule.
 
2. Then, second, if you’re still struggling with what to write about, I tell you to ask for help. If you’re not sure what to write about – ask other people. This might mean specific story prompts (from the internet, from friends), or it might mean words (I hate plot prompts – they never align with my style, so I find it so hard to use them. I like words. I ask people to offer me word they like, and then I write a story inspired by that one word).
 
Then commit to it. I used to attend a writer’s meetup on Wednesday nights for a year. It was at a Panera Bread restaurant, and I just went and sat by myself and wrote for a few hours and knocked out my once-a-week flash fiction piece. After having not written for a few years, this is what got me back into writing.
 
Having the outside location and other people there with the intent to write really helped me focus. It may have been more difficult to do at home when I was already struggling with writer’s block.

4. Give yourself an audience
I wrote a ton when back in high school, because I had friends reading it. I was also posting on websites like Fanfiction or Wattpad. Then I graduated from high school, grew distant from those friends, and stopped posting on sites. I wrote less.

When I went back to school for my third degree (Creative Writing), my classes' workshops gave me an audience which reignited my desire to write. Having people I am writing for or who intend on reading has always been helpful for me.
 
Examples
Giving yourself an audience can look like finding friends who write and workshopping with them, or finding an online community through social media. It can look like using the workshop’s deadlines to motivate yourself. It can look like using your friends to bounce ideas off of – it doesn’t have to be after you’ve written. When you’ve got writer’s block and aren’t sure where to go, it can be helpful to throw the idea out there and have a friend give you an idea on where to take it that you haven’t already thought of.

If you haven’t already, consider joining a Facebook group for writers to start building that community for yourself.

Here are some I'm in:

• Writers Helping Writers
  
• Self Publishing Support Group
  
• 20Booksto50k
  
• Women Writers, Editors, Agents, and Publishers
  

3. Pay attention to everything
This includes the notes scribbled on bathroom walls. The Santa Clause figurine inside someone’s open garage. The word that you think is beautiful in the book you’re reading. The misheard song lyric that you think is genius – why did someone else write it and you didn’t? And then you find out that they didn’t write it because they wrote something else and you heard it wrong… so, score! Now it’s yours! That weird conversation you have with your partner on the way out the door. The thing you read in the news that sounded wild and you can’t believe someone did that in real life. All of this is gold.
 
The thing is, most experiences are not completely original. Besides, you can always change some things to make it new, but these experiences give a great place to start when wanting to write very specific details that help build characters or scenes.
 
Examples
On my walk today I saw two little girls in cowboy hats playing on the sidewalk with chalk. I’d have never of thought of this on my own, but how interesting. I saw them and immediately came up with character ideas and plot ideas. If I wanted to change it further to make it less specific to that person, maybe it’s one girl. Maybe she’s not playing with chalk but bubbles. Whatever. It’s a good starting point.
 
Even George Saunders used something he noticed in his neighborhood to inspire a story. See the story and his comment about the house he noticed and wrote about here.
 
Most of my stories and characters are a Frankenstein’s monster- they are usually never completely imagined, but also never based solely on one person or experience. Typically, they are made up of some imagination as well as many little people and experiences I’ve met or had in my life.

2. Internet Forums
Seriously. Whenever I need any kind of inspiration or information on a topic that I have not personally experienced, places like Reddit or other internet forums are the jackpot. People discuss all sorts of experiences they’ve had on there, which can help when trying to incorporate experiences into your own writing that you haven’t had yourself.
 
Example
I wanted an experience with fire because I was writing a scene where I wanted fire to be a symbol. I am not a firefighter, no real experience with it, but a whole bunch of people on Reddit have had an experience, and people on Reddit like to talk about their experiences. I Googled "Weird Fire Story Reddit", and on one post, a few people talked about how the smell of bodies in a crematory smell like steak or burgers being cooked. This gave me something new to write about that I otherwise would have been stuck on.

Then the thing that helps me most of all is:

1. Making a document (dun dun dun)
Seriously, this might feel anticlimactic, but the biggest thing that has helped me write regularly has been a Google Doc that I created.
 
Whenever I have any type of thing that inspires me (title ideas based off something I heard someone say at the gym, details I noticed on my walk, character ideas because of the person I saw sitting in the car next to me, etc. – really anything you paid attention to up in number 4) I list them in this document. This document has been my writing life saver.
 
When I was working on my creative writing degree and had to write regularly for workshops, I needed many things to write about. I don’t always have things to write about though, and my memory is very bad, so when I had an idea at one point, it’s gone now and I’ve got nothing. This is why this list is great. All the ideas I have had are listed in one place, and if I want to write, I already have the things that inspire me right there. I don't have to wait for inspiration!
 
My Google Doc’s list includes the following categories:

• Titles (My forthcoming story, “Who Branded Jesus?”, has a title I thought of when looking at someone’s Jesus fish sticker on the back of their car. I asked that question and then thought it would be an interesting title. That’s all I had. I wrote it down. Eventually, when I sat down to write a one-sentence story, I decided to take this title and turn it into the story. I decided to tell a story using Jesus, a religious figure, as a symbol for a complex theme about branding and how other people understand us.)
  
• Details (things like upper teeth, a ladder on top of a truck, the Santa clause in someone’s garage. A lot of these are either things I notice on walks or in public, or things I think of when reading other books.)
• First Lines (sometimes I think up some random line that just seems like it’s begging to be a first sentence! So I have a category for those.)
• Plot Ideas (this can come from my real-life experiences, news stories, or random things I think of.)
• Strange Facts (random things I might learn that could be very interesting to incorporate into a story one day that I don’t want to forget but will.)

 
Honestly, this document has been my writing savior because when I want to write but don’t know what to write about, I have a treasure chest of ideas right in front of me. Ideas that I came up with. Things that inspire me. Things I want to write about anyway, so why not do it now?

So start your document today, and keep adding to it. Seriously. Then in the future, whenever you want to write something, you'll have a list of ideas.

Because writer’s block, to me, is the inability to write. Not knowing what to write about, even if I want to.
If that’s what it’s like for you, you don’t need to worry about that anymore!
They say that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. That’s how I view writing. I practice. I observe. I read. I learn things from other people. I practice more. I keep this list. And when I struggle with writing and don’t know what to write about, I have my preparation (the list) and opportunity (the desire or need to write), so I just sit down and make it happen.

And that’s it. That’s my writing magic. I cheat. I make my own luck and kick writer’s block out of the way.

And, surprise, two (simple) bonus ways that have helped me manage writer’s block:

Go for a walk
This isn’t original. I’ve seen it on other lists. It probably doesn’t sound especially helpful, right? What does moving your legs have to do with writing?
 
Walking can actually be very helpful, but only if you’ve honed in on observing. Meditating isn’t useful if you don’t know how to do it, right? Same goes for walking. But once you’ve trained yourself to pay attention to everything, it’s one of the best ways to get ideas to add to your list. There are so many interesting details to notice in the world. I also find that when I’m away from distractions and technology, my mind pays attention to those details and thinks a lot of things about them – so I immediately add those thoughts to my list!

So get up right now, go on a walk, and notice strange things about your neighborhood's houses, or about someone you pass. Walk down a main road and look at the shops or people driving.
 
Examples
There’s construction happening on the main road by my house. I pass it every day on my walk. For a few weeks I noticed the crew had some coolers that they just left on the side of the road that said Do Not Open. I don’t know what story this belongs in yet, but it’s such an interesting detail that it belongs somewhere. So it gets added to my list, and then one day, when I’m trying to figure out what to write, I’ll see that and decide it fits, and it’ll find a home.
(The construction guys also left a bottle of Mountain Dew out for a few days. Another strange detail that will get added into some story eventually).
 

Eliminating the need for the perfect story
This isn’t for everyone, but this is the final thing that has helped me with writer’s block, especially when tackling a longer story like a novel (which I was never before able to finish). What I mean by that is: I’m indecisive. Picking one plot that gets developed, and having one ending that’s the best… puts a lot of pressure on me, and I struggle with that, because I’m just not a decisive person. So when I decided to write an interactive novel (that I will eventually blog about), I was given so much freedom to be more creative and write shorter, choppier things, but still develop it way more than a short story gets to experience. I was also able to play with four endings. By giving myself this freedom, I felt like I could write about a lot of different things without them having to fit in the way a normal novel would need them to fit.
 


Writing helps. Moving helps. I think more when there’s nothing in front of me and I’m moving and only have my own head to live in. So go on a walk, go to the gym, and figure out ideas you can add to your list that way. I almost never write about my ideas immediately. They get added to my list. It has to be the right time, where I’ve figured out what these ideas mean to me, or have come up with some other idea that it connects to it really well and can be combined.
Then I can work its magic.


Do you have anything that's worked for you that I missed? Let me know below.