Writers, come to your senses. The human senses, that is

Readers become fully engrossed when writing ignites all five of their senses – sight, sound, smell, touch and taste.

• Readers see lighting
• They hear thunder
• They feel rainfall
• They taste ginger
• They smell coffee

The good writer thinks in terms of engaging one or more of the reader’s senses with each sentence, paragraph, anecdote or scene. Sometimes that’s possible, sometimes it’s not. What’s important is to always be looking for chances to write to the human senses or those opportunities will fly past unexploited.

Business writing tends to give us fewer of these opportunities because of its empirical nature. In other words, business writing cries out to be underpinned by facts, figures and objective, unadorned language.

Still, those opportunities do exists. Allow me to pose a hypothetical.

The CEO of your company asks you to send him a report about a visit being made to the manufacturing facility by the company’s largest shareholder. The report might just include the following paragraph. Count how many senses activated by the writing.

As soon as Fredrickson walked into the biotech clean room he was chilled by the air conditioning system and his nostrils stung by the antiseptic solvents. He squinted at the high-intensity lighting. A centrifuge started whirring at high volume. The technician handed him a tablet, the billion-dollar product under development. Fredrickson placed it on his tongue. It reminded him of a salted edge of a margarita glass.

That’s right, all five senses addressed in the course of a four-sentence graph. It included touch (chilled by the air conditioning system), smell (nostrils stung by antiseptic solvents), sight (he squinted at the high-intensity lighting), hearing (a centrifuge started whirring), taste (it reminded him of the salted edge of a margarita glass).

This would be a rare opportunity to engage all five senses in so few words. But the occasions do exist for those who are observant and opportunistic.

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