Concrete Sense Details Make Fiction Seem Real

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The writer who can fill his or her fiction with concrete sense details has a huge advantage in getting published over the writer who writes in diffused and vague language.  What are concrete sense details?  Concrete sense details are things that can be recognized through sight, hearing, smell, taste or touch.

What are some of these things?  They are cars, colors, buildings, food, the weather, furniture, the wind, skin, a basket ball, a painting, a window pane, a carpet, a balloon, water, ice cream, the wail of a siren, the sound of falling rain, the roar of a car engine, a kiss…You get the idea.

Why are things so important in fiction?  Things ground a short story, a piece of flash fiction or a novel to a physical world the reader will recognize.  And these things can only be recognized as concrete sense details.

These concrete sense details trigger in the reader’s brain a memory of what these things are like so that even though the reader is alone reading while sitting on the sofa, the reader will see, hear, smell, taste and feel the world the characters of a story live in. 

Sense details give the environment of the story life.

This real environment will help to make the story seem real.