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  • Writing Magazine

    ALL OUR COMMON SENSES

    May 06, 2021 5 minutes

    Over the past few months, I’ve been reading hundreds of entries for various writing competitions. I’ve realised yet again that most novelists and writers of short stories tend to rely very heavily on appealing to the sense of sight in order to bring the action to life for their readers. I’m not judging my fellow authors, by the way, because I know I’m often guilty of doing this myself.

    How can referencing those other four senses make our writing stronger, more vivid and better all round?

    I’ve just read a powerful debut novel by Emily Koch entitled If I Die Before I Wake, in which Alex, the central character, spends almost the entire narrative in a coma, apparently unresponsive to all external stimuli.

    Since the story is told exclusively from Alex’s point of view, we

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