Our default as writers is to communicate only what we see—the way a news reporter might cover interstate traffic during a morning commute. That reporter just notes (colorlessly) the volume of cars—but not how all those vehicles sound. Or smell. Or feel.

Maybe that's a bad example. Because it would be a little weird to talk about commuter “smell.”

But it's not weird for us to talk about more than what we see.

Better, richer, more colorful writing emerges when you add sensory details. Not just what you see, but also anything you hear, smell, taste, touch, feel.

Another sense (or two) gives your text a pulse. It makes your words come alive in a visceral, palpable way, because it immerses your reader more fully in the world you're creating.

My favorite book of all time is E.B. White's Charlotte's Web, in part because of its spare but tactile writing. (The book is mis-shelved in the children's section: It's a solid read for adults, too.)

Look at this Charlotte's Web paragraph:

The crickets sang in the grasses. They sang the song of summer's ending, a sad monotonous song. “Summer is over and gone, over and gone, over and gone. Summer is dying, dying.” A little maple tree heard the cricket song and turned bright red with anxiety.

The melancholy crickets. The little anxious sapling. The repetition that creates music right there on the page.

E.B. airdrops us into autumn using all his E.B. senses. His is not a dry, colorless weather report.

Marketers: Does all this feel impossibly literary to you?

Well, Marketing: I love you. You're perfect. But we've gotta change, too.

The best marketing writing can easily get more colorful if we add at least one more sense.

Two examples:

1. The bio of Jacoline Vinke (via the travel site Truffle Pig): “After spending a childhood in the Netherlands plotting her departure for warmer climes from the back of a rain-soaked bicycle … Jacoline finally landed in Greece in 1998, with a toddler, a one-month old baby, a Greek husband, and a determination never to go back to an office job.”¹
   • Can you feel the cold rain on Jacoline's young, furious face “plotting” as she was strapped into the back of that bike? Props for mixing actual baggage (family) and metaphorical baggage (resolve), too.
2. @FieldNotesBrand on Twitter: “THIS WEEK: Pushed a ton of pixels. Eyeballed a kaleidoscope of Pantone chips. Pulled a mess of bezier curves. Ran so many formulas. Kerned a lot of pairs. Plotted one big-ass experiment. Named a thing. Renamed that thing. Tore into packaging ideas. Never stopping shipping. Beer time.”²
   • Can you feel the industry and celebration of a busy week?

Here are your five takeaways for this chapter:

Just. Add. One. More. Sense.