What Sense?

[orphans]

I'm curious as to what type of sensory senses that people rely on the most or what kinds bring a story to life the most for you.

I've been thinking about this lately, and haven't quite figured out what it is for me that brings something to life clearly, so I thought I'd ask everyone else as well.

[Hysteria]

As in five senses? Touch, Smell, Taste, Hearing, Sight? I would say there is also something like intuition/magical sense and empathy (as in showing or explaining emotions so the reader feels them too).

I mostly rely on sight, with a bit of touch thrown in. Unfortunately I think I fail at the others.

[Knave]

All of them, for the most part sight and sound are almost mandatory. I don't think its necessary to the story to convey the smell and texture of something at every waking moment, but they will do for introductions to places and people, and should probably only be mentioned when they change or are aided by some natural import. Experience is one thing, though metaphors allow us some leeway, no one really needs to know what shit tastes like to say something tastes like it. I know that when I'm terrified I can taste metal, like rusted batteries, and when I'm tired the tip of my nose starts to burn. So emotion plays its part individually.

I think of them as garnishes though =P so its simply something you add later when you look back and think that there should be more. Retrospect is an awesome tool, heck, I'll call it a sense too, the metagaming sense.

[The Piper]

I used sight and sound in my previous roleplay sites before this one. Mainly because you always seeing and/or hearing something, unless your deaf or blind. So it's kind of hard not to describe something that is continuous, no?

[Breaker]

As Knave said, using all five is what really builds a picture. I find taste and smell are great for setting/changing the tone of a story or location, whereas touch sight and sound are the three most useful for actually describing things. But I mix that up as often as possible. What I'm working on right now is having my characters experience things without having to tell the reader. For example, if a character "listened and heard the quiet approach of footsteps" it's not nearly as compelling as "strained his ears and caught the whisper of approaching footsteps." This is harder to do with things like smell, touch, and taste, but when I succeed it love the result.