39 Imagery Examples (+7 Types) To Stimulate The Senses
by Joanna Kneller
on Feb 1, 2023
If you’re looking to add some oomph to your writing, these imagery examples are just what you need.
Not sure what imagery is?
It’s an amazing literary device that tickles your readers’ senses, grabs their attention, and draws them into your story.
And you can find out more about it right here in this scenic study guide!
In this post, you’ll get some great examples of imagery, and you’ll also learn:
- The difference between imagery and figurative language;
- Five additional literary devices that use figurative language;
- Seven common types of imagery (with examples);
- How imagery has been used in literature, movies, songs, and everyday speech.
Let’s dive in.
What is Imagery?
Imagery is the art of creating mental images through descriptive words. Writers use either literal or figurative language to help readers picture or imagine a scene by engaging their senses and evoking emotions.
This literary device describes objects, actions, or ideas while providing readers with a sensory experience that pulls them into a story, allowing them to relate to the characters and better understand the narrative.
Literal Imagery vs. Figurative Imagery
Imagery can contain either literal or figurative language.
Literal imagery uses descriptive words that mean exactly what they say.
For example:
“The grass was green, and the flowers were red.”
Figurative imagery uses descriptive language that means something different than or goes beyond the literal definition of the words, often through exaggeration, comparison, or symbolism.
For example, “He has a heart of stone” does not mean his heart is literally made of stone. Instead, it is a figurative comparison of his unkind or cruel actions to being as hard and cold as a stone.
Imagery and Figurative Language
Imagery and figurative language add depth and color to your storytelling, marketing messages, or blog posts , making your writing inviting and alluring to readers.
Imagery is not automatically the same thing as figurative language. The writer of imagery has options: They can include just literal descriptive language or figurative language or both.
Figurative language is a “tool” to be used in imagery and other literary devices, such as metaphors , onomatopoeia , personification, similes, and hyperbole, to describe something.
Here are some simple definitions and examples of these literary devices:
1. Metaphor
A metaphor compares two familiar, but unrelated, things to suggest a likeness between them.
Example: Time is money.
2. Onomatopoeia
An onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like the action it describes.
Example: The soda fizzed as I poured it into the glass.
3. Personification
Personification is when objects or animals are given human-like qualities.
Example: Opportunity knocked at his door.
A simile compares two different things, using the words “like” or “as.”
Example: She was as happy as a clam.
5. Hyperbole
Hyperbole is an extreme exaggeration , not meant to be taken seriously.
Example: You snore louder than a freight train !
21 Imagery Examples to Elevate Your Writing
Elevate your writing by making your scenes come alive, so your readers feel like they are part of the story. Using imagery whenever a description is required will help readers form a mental picture of each scene.
There are seven major types of imagery used in writing. Five of these pertain to the basic senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. The remaining two pertain to physical movement and internal sensations or feelings.
1. Visual Imagery
Visual imagery appeals to our sense of sight. It describes things that we see, such as colors, size, shapes, and patterns.
Visual imagery is the most common type of imagery used by authors because it helps them vividly describe characters and scenery in a story.
Examples of visual imagery:
- As they sat on the soft, sugary sand beach waiting for the sunset, the sinking sun shimmered on the water as the blue sky transformed into various shades of purple and pink.
- Veronica was dressed to impress. The scanty scarlet lace dress clung to every curve.
- Misty plopped down on the comfortable couch, but it was difficult for her to relax when the room was a disaster area-toys and shoes and books and dishes were strewn about.
Notice that literal descriptive language is mainly used in these examples. However, in the last example, figurative language is used to compare the room to a disaster area.
2. Auditory Imagery
Auditory imagery engages our sense of hearing. It describes sounds that we hear, such as noise, music, and even silence.
Examples of auditory imagery:
- As she walked through the wintery woods, her teeth chattered and the leaves crunched under her feet.
- The pitter-patter of rain and whispering breeze had progressed into a gushing downpour and howling wind.
- The eerie silence made him stop in his tracks.
Notice the sounds made by her teeth, the leaves, rain, and wind-and even the silence sounds “eerie.”
3. Olfactory Imagery
Olfactory imagery relates to our sense of smell. It describes different scents, such as fragrances and odors.
Smell has the power to link us to the past, and familiar smells can trigger our memories and emotions.
Examples of olfactory imagery:
- The sweet fragrance of honeysuckle always reminded Jenny of her mother’s perfume.
- He woke up to the smell of burnt toast and greasy bacon, when all he wanted was coffee.
- As she entered the warm house, she was welcomed by the scents of hot apple cider and cinnamon.
Notice how the honeysuckle fragrance triggers a memory for Jenny. Also, the smells of burnt toast and greasy bacon seem unpleasant to the man, but the scents of apple cider and cinnamon appear to evoke pleasant feelings for the woman.
4. Gustatory Imagery
Gustatory imagery appeals to our sense of taste and food cravings. It describes flavors, such as spiciness, sweetness, sourness, savoriness, and saltiness, and also includes the textures and sensations we experience while eating.
This type of imagery works well with olfactory (smell) imagery.
Examples of gustatory imagery:
- She couldn’t wait to sink her teeth into the succulent, salty steak.
- My mouth nearly watered as I stared at the decadent chocolate mousse and imagined the sweet, creamy dessert rolling on my tongue.
- The boy bit into the ripe peach and smiled as the sweet, soft fruit filled his mouth, and the juice ran down his chin.
Are you feeling hungry now? Notice the descriptive words being used to describe flavors and textures. We can also relate to the experiences of the girl sinking her teeth into the steak, and the boy having peach juice running down his chin.
5. Tactile Imagery
Tactile imagery engages our sense of touch. It describes what you can physically feel, such as temperature, movement, texture, and other sensations.
Examples of tactile imagery:
- A gust of cold air blew over her, causing her body to shiver. After she pulled the fuzzy blanket up to her chin, she was warm and cozy.
- His legs ached after climbing so many flights of stairs, and he could feel the flush in his face. He couldn’t wait to get out of his sticky, sweaty clothes and let the cool, soothing water wash over him in the shower.
- The dog yelped after stepping on a prickly burr, and then I almost yelped when I yanked it from his paw and the prickles pierced my fingers.
Notice the feeling of experiencing different temperatures, the textures of the “fuzzy” blanket and the “prickly” burr, and how both the dog and human felt pain after touching the burr.
6. Kinesthetic Imagery
Kinesthetic imagery is unrelated to the five basic senses and instead relates to the actions and movements of people or objects. It describes physical movement, actions that lead to touch, and temperature.
This type of imagery can be similar to tactile (touch) imagery.
Examples of kinesthetic imagery:
- He rummaged through each drawer, hurling items to the floor until he found the mysterious bracelet.
- She raked her fingers through her hair in an attempt to smooth out the knots.
- He enjoyed watching the palm trees swaying in the wind as rain drizzled from the sky.
Notice the physical movements of people rummaging, hurling , and raking. The trees and rain also show their movement.
7. Organic Imagery
Organic imagery is also unrelated to the five basic senses and instead appeals to internal sensations, feelings, and emotions. It describes personal experiences, such as fatigue, hunger, thirst, fear, love, loneliness, despair, elation, and nostalgia.
Organic imagery is subjective, which contributes to it being a more difficult and complex form of mental imagery since the writer’s goal is to create a specific emotion or feeling within the reader.
Examples of organic imagery:
- Her eyes lit up the moment she saw him, and she ran into his arms.
- He lowered his head and covered his face with his hands. He couldn’t bear for her to see what her words had done to him.
- She clenched her fists and then threw her hands in the air as he continued to yell at her.
Here we can feel emotions of happiness, shame, sadness, anger, and frustration.
More Imagery Examples
Examples of imagery can be found in all kinds of writing, such as fiction, nonfiction, novels, stories, essays, poetry , and plays.
Imagery is also found in pop culture, movies, songs, and everyday speech.
Below are examples of imagery taken from excerpts of two novels and two poems as well as examples from a movie, two songs, and various sayings.
Examples of Imagery in Literature
Visual Imagery Example
The Hobbit , JRR Tolkien:
“The far bank was steep and slippery. When they got to the top of it, leading their ponies, they saw that the great mountains had marched down very near to them. Already they seemed only a day’s easy journey from the feet of the nearest. Dark and drear it looked, though there were patches of sunlight on its brown sides, and behind its shoulders, the tips of snow-peaks gleamed.”
Tolkein’s alluring, powerful words describing the mountain allow the reader to experience the same feelings of awe, nervousness, and anticipation as Bilbo, Gandalf, and the Dwarves.
Auditory Imagery Example
“Birches,” Robert Frost:
“…Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.”
Here the reader can hear the clicks and cracks of the birches on a cold winter morning.
Tactile Imagery Example
Jane Eyre , Charlotte Brontë:
“I heard the rain still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then my courage sank. My habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire.”
The figurative descriptions of temperature (“cold as a stone”) and dampness allow the reader to feel Jane’s discomfort and depression.
Kinesthetic Imagery Example
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (aka “ Daffodils ”), William Wordsworth:
In this poem, he speaks of golden daffodils that are “Fluttering and dancing in the breeze” and “Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.”
The way these daffodils are moving evokes a sense of happiness or glee to the reader.
Organic Imagery Example
“So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It’s when I’m weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood…”
This excerpt allows the reader to experience the writer’s feelings of nostalgia.
Examples of Imagery in Movies, Songs, & Everyday Speech
Movies Example:
In the animated movie, 101 Dalmatians , one of the puppies uses figurative imagery (hyperbole) by exaggerating when it says, “I’m so hungry, I could eat a whole elephant.”
Song Examples:
“What a Wonderful World,” Louis Armstrong
“I see trees of green Red roses too I see them bloom For me and you And I think to myself What a wonderful world I see skies of blue And clouds of white The bright blessed day…”
Successful imagery not only paints a pretty picture, but also helps us feel and connect with a scene emotionally.
Notice how Louis Armstrong’s lyrics embrace poetic imagery to illustrate a compelling scene. But, pay attention to how the lyrics make you feel. Do you feel a soothing sense of love and happiness? Or maybe something deeper?
“Firework,” Katy Perry
“Do you ever feel like a plastic bag Drifting through the wind Wanting to start again? Do you ever feel, feel so paper-thin Like a house of cards One blow from caving in? …Baby, you’re a firework Come on, let your colors burst…”
This song contains a lot of figurative language (similes and metaphors) by comparing or associating human emotions to objects and events.
Everyday Speech Examples:
- She’s as sweet as pie.
- It was like a dagger to the heart!
- My head is pounding like a drum.
People often use imagery to communicate their feelings, thoughts, and ideas. These examples use figurative language to make comparisons that help the listener better understand what the speaker is expressing.
Ready to Write Your Own Imagery Examples?
Phew! Your head must be spinning from all these writing tips .
But now you know how to use imagery to upgrade your skills and get the results you want.
The best way to become a master at writing different types of imagery is to practice.
Still not sure where to start?
- Review these examples as often as needed;
- Consider what kind of description you need to write;
- Decide which senses you’d like to appeal to;
- Start writing.
And before you know it, you’ll be sharp as a tack!
Joanna Kneller
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Written by Joanna Kneller
1 thought on “39 imagery examples (+7 types) to stimulate the senses”.
It was a great resource! Imagery is a big part of writing and getting it right can increase the overall engagement of a piece. As a blogger, I am always looking for better ways to engage my audience, and with your help, I may be able to write better. Thanks a lot for sharing this amazing resource with the raiders. I learned a lot from it, and I am looking forward to implementing these strategies into my writing.
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Imagery in Writing: Examples of Imagery as a Literary Device
Have you ever read a passage about a sumptuous feast that made your mouth water, or felt your skin tingle while reading about the chill of a frigid winter night? Those reactions are the result of imagery. Imagery is language that appeals to the senses.
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What is imagery?
Imagery enhances writing by creating a physical response in the reader through sensory details. Language can elicit a psychological or intellectual reaction in a reader, and imagery is just one more tool a writer has to connect with their audience through sensation and emotion.
Take the following passage from a 1966 article by Joan Didion titled “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream.” In this passage, Didion uses imagery to talk about the region’s wind:
“. . . a harsher California, haunted by the Mohave just beyond the mountains, devastated by the hot dry Santa Ana wind that comes down through the passes at 100 miles an hour and whines through the Eucalyptus windbreaks and works on the nerves.”
A passage with less imagery might depict the winds as being “hot and dry,” but Didion’s rich description goes farther, creating for the reader a feeling of roughness (appealing to touch) in the winds.
Imagery in writing
Writers use imagery to generate a physical or emotional response in the reader. One way to do this is through evocative adjectives. For example, using “shimmering” or “blinding” instead of “bright,” or “piercing” instead of “loud.” There is also a lot of potential for imagery in verbs since those are the words that move your narrative forward. Poignant and direct verbs will bring your reader along for the ride.
Another way to create imagery is through amplification . Amplification is a literary device that exaggerates or emphasizes a certain point. For example, you can tell your reader that you had a long drive home. Or, using amplification, you can tell them the road before you stretched through space and time, jutting into a seemingly endless succession of nights and days that blurred together and deposited you collapsed on your doorstep. That might be a little dramatic, but amplification is all about drama. It also creates the feeling of weariness (which is another appeal to tactile imagery if you imagine the weight of your eyelids).
However, too much imagery can lessen the effectiveness of your writing. If every night is the deepest, blackest night the narrator has ever seen; if every mango is the most succulent they’ve ever eaten; if every wind is the iciest they’ve ever felt, then your reader might get fed up with the drama of it all; if everything is special, then nothing is special.
Imagery in poetry
Imagery doesn’t always require complicated descriptions. Sometimes it only takes a couple of precise words to tap into the reader’s senses. Often, imagery in a poem generates a strong reaction using just a few words. For example, the opening lines of Mary Oliver’s poem “At Black River” effectively send the reader’s imagination to the riverbank in a slim three lines:
“All day its dark, slick bronze soaks in a mossy place . . .”
What are the types of imagery?
Although not everyone can experience all these senses themselves, writing that appeals to the senses can still spark their imagination:
Visual imagery
Visual imagery is imagery that you can see in your mind’s eye. It is the colors, brightness, shape, and movement of something. Visual imagery is the most common form of imagery in writing because it is the best way for a writer to describe settings and characters.
Auditory imagery
Auditory imagery evokes sounds. This might be the whir of machinery or the rush of a river. Any imagery that causes the reader to hear the scene is auditory imagery.
Tactile imagery
Tactile imagery is the imagery of touch. The roughness of a sweater, the coolness of fresh sheets, and the softness of a kitten’s fur are all examples of tactile imagery.
Gustatory imagery
Gustatory imagery makes your mouth water. It is imagery that concerns taste—think about books with recipes, grocery shopping scenes, and dinner descriptions.
Olfactory imagery
Olfactory imagery is the imagery of scent. When a writer describes the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the morning and the reader perks up, that’s an effective use of olfactory imagery. Alternatively, a writer can convey a sense of discomfort to the reader by describing the scent of rot or decay.
What’s the difference between literal and figurative imagery?
There are two types of imagery: literal and figurative.
Literal imagery appeals to the reader’s prior knowledge of something, describing it so precisely that the reader cannot help but feel (or see, hear, taste, or smell) the thing being described.
For example, look at this passage from Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro:
There was bright sunshine, but it must have been raining earlier that day because I can remember how the sun was glinting on the muddy surface of the grass.
The language is straightforward (literal), but it is descriptive in a way that gives the reader a very clear image of the scene. The reader can see the sheen of a damp sunny day.
Figurative imagery relies on language like simile and metaphors to evoke the senses. In this passage from Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin, the narrator uses personification in her description of lunch to generate a tactile effect:
I started to eat, chewing faster and faster, swirling the makgeolli in my bowl with the tips of my chopsticks. Gulping down long drafts. The dense whiteness of the alcohol cutting my throat as it slipped down toward my stomach.
The reader can almost feel the sharpness of the alcohol through the author’s use of figurative imagery.
Examples of imagery
You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. —Maya Angelou, “Still I Rise”
“Not that I had any great feast in mind: I would be stir frying thin slices of beef, onions, green peppers, and bean sprouts with a little salt, pepper, soy sauce, and a splash of beer—a recipe from my single days. The rice was done, the miso soup was warm, and the vegetables were all sliced and arranged in separate piles in a large dish, ready for the wok.” —Haruki Murakami, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
“Adam went into the house and took off his black clothes. He could smell the sweet and now sickish odor of rum about himself. He removed all of his clothes and sponged his skin with yellow soap until the odor was gone from his pores.” —John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Imagery FAQs
Imagery is a literary device that evokes the five senses to create a mental image.
How is imagery used in writing?
Imagery engages the reader’s senses to draw them more deeply into the writing. Powerful imagery can even provoke an emotional response in the reader.
What are the different kinds of imagery?
Imagery can be literal or figurative. Literal imagery uses precise descriptions to generate the image. Figurative imagery relies on figurative language, like similes and metaphors, to engage the reader. Imagery can also correspond to the senses.
What are examples of imagery in creative writing? (2023)
- 1. What is imagery in creative writing?
- 2. What is the best example of an imagery?
- 3. What are 4 examples of imagery?
- 4. Why do writers use imagery in creative writing?
- 5. What is imagery English example?
- 6. How do you use imagery in a sentence?
- 7. What is visual imagery example?
- 8. How do you know if a sentence is imagery?
- 9. What is imagery simple?
- 10. What are the 5 sensory imagery?
- 11. What are some imagery devices?
- 12. How do you write good imagery?
- 13. How do you describe imagery in an essay?
- 14. How do you analyze imagery in a text?
- 15. How is visual imagery used in writing?
- 16. How do you write a paragraph using imagery?
- 17. What are the 5 imagery senses?
- 18. What is imagery in simple words?
- 19. How do you identify imagery in a sentence?
- 20. Can imagery be sound?
- 21. What is the imagery of smell?
- 22. How do you write a imagery paragraph?
- 23. How do you demonstrate imagery?
- 24. What are examples of imagery devices?
What is imagery in creative writing?
Imagery is descriptive language used to appeal to a reader's senses : touch, taste, smell, sound, and sight. Original description gives writing a sense of honesty and believability, while concise details can help enhance your focus.. Visual imagery is the most obvious and typical form of imagery.
For example: “ The grass was green, and the flowers were red.” Figurative imagery uses descriptive language that means something different than or goes beyond the literal definition of the words, often through exaggeration, comparison, or symbolism.
- Visual: appeals to our sense of sight. The crimson apple glistened in her hand.
- Auditory: appeals to our sense of sound. The roaring thunder frightened the little boy.
- Olfactory: appeals to our sense of smell. ...
- Gustatory: appeals to our sense of taste. ...
- Tactile: appeals to our sense of touch.
Imagery can make something abstract, like an emotion or theory, seem more concrete and tangible to the reader. By using imagery, writers can evoke the feeling they want to talk about in their readers...and by making their readers feel, writers can also help readers connect to the messages in their work.
Meaning of imagery in English. the use of words or pictures in books, films, paintings, etc. to describe ideas or situations : The imagery in the poem mostly relates to death.
Example Sentences The book contains a great deal of sexual imagery. The movie was full of biblical imagery.
Visual imagery describes what we see: comic book images, paintings, or images directly experienced through the narrator's eyes . Visual imagery may include: Color, such as: burnt red, bright orange, dull yellow, verdant green, and Robin's egg blue. Shapes, such as: square, circular, tubular, rectangular, and conical.
The key to recognizing sentences with imagery is to look for descriptive language that invokes one of the five senses . Visual imagery is the most common, which describes the way something looks, but other types of imagery might describe the way something smells, tastes, or sounds, for example.
Imagery is a literary device used in poetry, novels, and other writing that uses vivid description that appeals to a readers' senses to create an image or idea in their head . Through language, imagery does not only paint a picture, but aims to portray the sensational and emotional experience within text.
Imagery in literature triggers the five human senses: sight, sound, sense of taste, touch, and the sense of smell. Authors use many types of imagery to activate these senses, including olfactory imagery, gustatory imagery, tactile imagery and auditory imagery.
What are some imagery devices?
Literary devices such as simile, metaphor, onomatopoeia, and personification help beautify a piece of literature. With imagery, you can make a story tense, suspenseful, thrilling, and more. This way, the reader will have the tools to fully immerse into the story and experience it in a unique way.
Using imagery in your writing means writing tangibly with the five senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, smell . We often see sight and sound in writing, but if you can incorporate the less typical senses, combine them together, and use them creatively, you'll sculpt a much richer picture for your readers.
Remember that IMAGERY refers to descriptive words and phrases in the story that provide sensory impressions (of the setting, character, situations, etc.) for the reader. IMAGERY includes any information that appeals to the senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, or smell.
- Read the passage to see if there is something recognisable to the senses.
- Identify the examples using sensory imagery; and then: ...
- Ask yourself what this imagery is representing?
- Write about what this imagery does, and how it supports your argument using a T.E.E.L structure.
Visual Imagery is about what writers can show the reader at a particular place; it could range from objects, other people, or something unusual . Let us take a look at the related example sentences: The white frost creeping up on the windowpane made her look at her car covered under a 3-inch thick blanket of the snow.
- Expand and specify. When you say, “She went to her room and sat on her bed,” don't stop there. ...
- Be weird. Don't be afraid to get a little out there with your descriptions, especially when it comes to similes and metaphors. ...
- Use the five senses.
The five types of imagery ( visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory ) relate to the five senses. Writers use imagery to build a specific sensory experience for readers to imagine and relate to. Literary devices such as simile and metaphor can be used to create imagery.
An easy way to spot imagery in a text is to pay attention to words, phrases, and sentences that connect with your five senses (sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound) . That's because writers know that in order to capture a reader's attention, they need to engage with them mentally, physically, and emotionally.
Definition of Imagery Though figurative langauge can be used to describe the visual appearance of something, imagery also refers to vivid descriptions of sounds, tastes, physical sensations, and smells.
What is the imagery of smell?
Abstract. Stevenson and Case (2005) define olfactory imagery as “ being able to experience the sensation of smell when an appropriate stimulus is absent .” Olfactory imagery is a form of odor presentation in addition to actual odors.
To start an IMAGE paragraph, you will need a topic sentence. This sentence should focus on how the author's description contributes to the tones in the story . Example: Imagery throughout the passage increases the sense of danger the narrator feels upon seeing the snake.
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300+ Sensory Imagery Examples to Master Creative Writing
As writers, we all struggle the most with bringing out how a character sees, perceives, smells, or feels. New writers often lag due to too much telling and too little showing. The rich imagery, the true essence, and a three-dimensional physical presence of everything around a character are what we find ourselves most entwined in.
‘Show, don’t tell’ isn’t just a phrase to embellish your writing. It’s a way for readers to connect with your characters and the story. It’s a way for the readers to be around them and in the midst of the story. It’s a way for the readers to live the story your characters are living and you lived as the author of it.
Now, we often find ourselves in the dilemma of how to show more and tell less, or at least maintain a balance between the two. Each writer writes to improve and weave the stories for the world to get lost into and come out as if it lived them.
I have prepared a list of more than 300 example sentences that are going to come handy when you find yourselves struggling with how to write about someone and something.
Before I begin, understand that there are different types of imagery in literature.
Types of Sensory imagery in literature:
- Kinesthetic
- Organic
1. Visual Imagery in Literature
The visual imagery appeals to our sense of sight. The author uses similes, metaphor, and personification in the descriptions to narrate what he wants his readers to see.
Visual Imagery Literary Examples:
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills , When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils ; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze . I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, William Wordsworth’s (1804)
Learn More about Visual Imagery:
Get Free Access to Visual Imagery Examples & Descriptions to Inspire Creative Writing
2. Auditory Imagery in Literature
The auditory imagery appeals to our sense of sound. It may include pleasant and unpleasant descriptions of sounds. Some authors also use words that imitate sounds to create the auditory experience for readers.
Auditory Imagery Examples:
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. To Autumn, John Keats (1820)
Learn More about Auditory Imagery:
Get Free Access to 30+ Auditory Imagery Examples & Descriptions to Inspire Creative Writing
3. Olfactory Imagery in Literature
The olfactory imagery appeals to our sense of smell by describing something the narrator or protagonist inhales. It may include off-putting odours, pleasant fragrances, and other familiar scents.
Olfactory Imagery Literary Examples
They silently inhale the clover-scented gale, And the vapors that arise From the well-watered and smoking soil Rain in Summer, H.W. Longfellow
Learn More about Olfactory Imagery:
Get Free Access to 50+ Olfactory Imagery Examples & Descriptions to Inspire Creative Writing
4. Gustatory Imagery in Literature
The Gustatory imagery appeals to our sense of taste by describing something the narrator or protagonist tastes. It’s most effective when the author describes a taste a reader might have experienced before so they can recall it from their memory.
Gustatory Imagery Literary Examples
O how can it be that the ground itself does not sicken? How can you be alive you growths of spring? How can you furnish health you blood of herbs, roots, orchards, grain? Are they not continually putting distemper’d corpses within you? Is not every continent work’d over and over with sour dead? Where have you disposed of their carcasses? Those drunkards and gluttons of so many generations? Where have you drawn off all the foul liquid and meat? I do not see any of it upon you to-day, or perhaps I am deceiv’d, I will run a furrow with my plough, I will press my spade through the sod and turn it up underneath, I am sure I shall expose some of the foul meat. This Compost, Walt Whitman (1856)
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5. Tactile Imagery in Literature
The tactile imagery appeals to our sense of touch by describing something the protagonist feels on their body. It may include the feel of different physical sensations, temperatures, and textures.
Tactile Imagery Literary Examples:
When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze up, and all the cottage warm Porphyria’s Lover, Robert Browning (1836)
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6. Kinesthetic Imagery in Literature
Kinesthesia is used as a poetic device that gives a feeling of natural, or physical bodily movement or action (like breathing, heartbeat, and a pulse).
Kinesthetic imagery Literary Examples
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his breast. Leda and the Swan, W.B. Yeats (1923)
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7. Organic Imagery in Literature
Organic imagery pertains to personal experiences of a character’s body, including emotion and the senses of hunger, thirst, fatigue, and pain.
Organic is essentially the hardest of all the types of imagery. Depicting the feelings through the actions is what Organic imagery deals with. Writers often feel daunted by how to project emotions on the page to the reader. Don’t Worry, I have got the Samples to help you with. I am going to go feeling by feeling (the important ones) and show you how you can show your readers what your character feels:
Organic imagery Literary Examples:
So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It’s when I’m weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Birches, Robert Frost’s (1916)
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Winding Up:
I understand there is also a thing called ‘too much showing’. And to maintain a balance between too much showing and too much telling, we, the writers, need to know the scenes where showing is required and how much we should show. The above-given examples are completely at your disposal. Do make their use and your writing impressive!
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What is Imagery? — Definition, Types, and Examples
Imagery definition
Imagery is descriptive language that appeals to the five senses, movement, and internal emotions and feelings. Imagery is not limited to engaging the reader's sense of sight. Instead, imagery uses sensory details to evoke external and internal sensations and makes information more engaging and appealing.
Types of imagery
There are seven main types of imagery: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, kinesthetic, and organic.
Visual: Visual imagery is one of the most commonly used forms of imagery in creative writing. It creates a mental image in the reader's mind, allowing them to visualize a writer's descriptions. Visual imagery typically includes qualities such as color, shape, or size.
Auditory: Auditory imagery appeals to a reader's sense of hearing. Authors use onomatopoeia, alliteration, and other literary devices to mimic the effect of sounds.
Olfactory: Olfactory imagery appeals to a reader's sense of smell. Writers incorporate descriptions of smell to help readers understand what characters are experiencing.
Gustatory: Gustatory imagery focuses on a reader's sense of taste. Writers describe common tastes such as sweetness, sour, salty, or spicy in their use of gustatory imagery.
Tactile: Tactile imagery refers to a reader's sense of touch. Most writers focus on temperature, texture, and other typical physical sensations most people experience.
Kinesthetic: Kinesthetic imagery centers around a reader's sense of movement. By describing motions, writers make their characters more realistic and three-dimensional.
Organic: Organic imagery appeals to the internal sensations of a reader. These can either be physical (like hunger) or emotional (like sadness).
Imagery examples
The following chart details examples of imagery by type:
Imagery in poetry
The following examples detail how writers use various types of imagery in poetry:
Visual: Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; / Coral is far more red than her lips' red; / If snow be white , why then her breasts are dun; / If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
Auditory: "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The ice was here, the ice was there, / The ice was all around: / It cracked and growled, and roared and / howled, / Like noises in a swound !
Olfactory: "Rain in Summer" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
They silently inhale / the clover-scented gale , / And the vapors that arise / From the well-watered and smoking soil.
Gustatory: "This Is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams
I have eaten / the plums / that were in the icebox … Forgive me / they were delicious / so sweet / and so cold.
Tactile: "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Rothke
At every step you missed / My right ear scraped a buckle . / You beat time on my head / With a palm caked hard by dirt , / Then waltzed me off to bed / Still clinging to your shirt .
Kinesthetic: "Mother to Son" by Langston Hughes
But all the time / I’se been a-climbin’ on , / And reachin’ landin’s , / And turnin’ corners , / And sometimes goin’ in the dark / Where there ain’t been no light.
Organic: " Birches" by Robert Frost
So was I once myself a swinger of birches. / And so I dream of going back to be. / It’s when I’m weary of considerations, / And life is too much like a pathless wood.
Imagery in literature
The following examples incorporate the use of imagery in literary works:
Visual: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, / Having some business, do entreat her eyes / To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? / The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, / As daylight doth a lamp.
Auditory: Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.
Olfactory: Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
The barn was very large. It was very old. It smelled of hay and it smelled of manure . It smelled of the perspiration of tired horses and the wonderful sweet breath of patient cows . It often had a sort of peaceful smell as though nothing bad could happen ever again in the world. It smelled of grain and of harness dressing and of axle grease and of rubber boots and of new rope . And whenever the cat was given a fish head to eat, the barn would smell of fish .
Gustatory: A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
The hour was approaching at which the continental breakfast begins, or rather ceases, to tell, and the ladies bought some hot chestnut paste out of a little shop, because it looked so typical. It tasted partly of the paper in which it was wrapped, partly of hair oil, partly of the great unknown .
Tactile: "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury
The house shuddered , oak bone on bone, its bared skeleton cringing from the heat, its wire, its nerves revealed as if a surgeon had torn the skin off to let the red veins and capillaries quiver in the scalded air. Help, help! Fire! Run, run! Heat snapped mirrors like the first brittle winter ice .
Kinesthetic: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt , and there was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged .
Organic: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections-sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent -that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it.
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Visual Imagery Examples
<font size="-1">The verdant glades that spread before them dazzled her with every shade of green.</font>
- DESCRIPTION couple enjoying the view from cliff
- SOURCE mikroman6 / Moment Open / Getty Images
- PERMISSION Used under license
Have you ever read an excerpt from a book or poem and felt like you were standing in a flower-filled meadow or tip-toeing through a shadowy alleyway? Visual imagery appeals to the sense of sight and plays a large role in descriptive writing.
When used well, visual imagery can transport readers to a 15th-century castle in Italy or a bumpy road in Ireland, riddled with puddles and sheep. Being able to describe a scene is one of the most important elements of creative writing . Below, we’ll explore ten visual imagery examples to help you get your creative juices flowing.
Examples of Visual Imagery
Put on your sunglasses. We’re about to go on a sensory ride including bright bursts of sunlight, the verdant glades of Scotland, and delicate slips of moonlight through frost-covered glass.
- As she stepped out of the office building, she thought the bright, beaming sunlight would blind her. Immediately, she began rummaging through her purse for her Tom Ford shades.
- His phone signaled, immediately setting his teeth on edge. He looked at the cracked screen, saw her name, and slapped the phone back down on his desk.
- She sat at the desk, chin on hand, and carelessly flipped through the pages. When she got to chapter three, she sat up straight, and pulled off her glasses.
- The puppy sprawled across her couch, legs twitching feverishly, and she knew he must be dreaming of the squirrels he tries to capture every morning.
- He took her hand and led her to the edge of the cliff. The verdant glades that spread before them dazzled her with every shade of green.
- She accepted the bouquet. It was filled with her favorite flowers - white roses, purple irises, and soft sprays of baby’s breath. The flowers swayed in the breeze, almost as if they were dancing in her delight.
- He took the tattered leather-bound book from her. The cover was so faded, it was hard to make out the title. He was instructed to open it, but feared the anthology would crumble into dust.
- Together, they sat at the shoreline. The shimmering sun was sinking into the sea and, as it disappeared, she told him they’d never meet again.
- The monstrous German Shepherd lurched to its feet. Someone was at the door. As she reached for the handle, the dog burst through the slitted opening and lunged at the man.
- She couldn’t sleep. So, she got out of bed, trailed through the delicate slips of moonlight twinkling in the frost-covered glass, and turned on the kettle.
As we write, there are a multitude of ways to draw the reader into the story. We can catch their attention with an interesting bout of alliteration . Or, we can insert onomatopoeia to mimic the “splash” of water or the “kerplunk” of a log. These are two examples in a robust world of literary devices. For more on these, take a read through these Examples of Rhetorical Devices .
Why Do Writers Use It?
Famed romance writer, Nora Roberts, has a blog titled “ Fall Into The Story .” Welcoming readers into a new world should be the goal of every creative writer . Readers enjoy being able to step out of their everyday lives and into new adventures. One of the most common ways to do this is through visual imagery.
With this tool, readers can use their imagination to sit before a peat fire in Ireland or zipline through the lush, green forest in Chile. They’ll know if the hot, scorching sun was burning their eyes or the hot, invisible sun was hiding behind the clouds.
Types of Imagery
All in all, there are five types of imagery in literature. They are:
- Visual Imagery - Without a doubt, this is the most common form of imagery. As we now know, it evokes vivid images of the characters and scenery.
- Olfactory Imagery - This form of imagery calls to our sense of smell. For example, “When he walked into her kitchen, he was assaulted by the scents of raspberry and caramel.”
- Gustatory Imagery - This form of imagery has to do with our taste buds. For example, “He bit into the crepe and thought the burst of raspberry would melt his tongue… until he tasted the warm drops of caramel.”
- Tactile Imagery - This deals with our sense of touch . For example, “The splash of boiling water bounced off the counter and singed her skin.”
- Auditory Imagery - Finally, this form of imagery calls to our sense of hearing. For example, “She found it difficult to fall asleep in the quiet cottage. Where were the blaring sirens and the sounds of midnight ramblers rolling through the streets?”
For a deeper dive, enjoy What Are the 5 Types of Imagery in Literature?
Envision a Visual World
Do you always have a story running through your head? When you go out to a restaurant, do you like to make up stories about the other people sitting around you? Is the old man dining alone mourning the loss of his wife? Is the couple staring at their cell phones on the brink of a divorce? Perhaps you have a future in storytelling.
One night, open up a blank Word doc and write a scene - just one scene. Try to paint a vivid image with your words, whether it’s a cluttered kitchen or an empty warehouse. And when you’re ready to create an entirely new world, take a look at Get Creative: How to Write a Short Story . We hope you’ll set the world on fire with your visual imagery and powerful attention to detail.
What is imagery?
Ok, writers. Let’s go back to basics. Voltaire famously said, “Writing is the painting of the voice,” meaning it is the task of the writer to show the reader something—a scene, an object, a view, a character, anything that can be described. We do that describing through imagery.
Imagery is one of the most important literary devices or tools in the writer’s tool box. Because literature (stories, poems, memoirs) is the written expression of a human condition, we as writers must draw on what makes us human to convey these experiences in the hopes of making a connection with the reader.
According to Literary Devices,
“Imagery is a literary device that refers to the use of figurative language to evoke a sensory experience or create a picture with words for a reader. By utilizing effective descriptive language and figures of speech, writers appeal to a reader’s senses of sight, taste, smell, touch, and sound, as well as internal emotion and feelings. Therefore, imagery is not limited to visual representations or mental images, but also includes physical sensations and internal emotions.”
To break that down: descriptive language + senses and emotions = imagery.
Now, I’m no math expert, but I like knowing what parts make up the whole. We probably know about senses and emotions, but what do we mean by figures of speech?
At its core, a figure of speech is usually a simile, metaphor, or hyperbole, and can be literal or figurative.
Examples of figures of speech
An example:
Literal Simile: Her hair was like the color of burnished copper.
Figurative Simile: Her hair was like a sunset on a desert.
In the previous examples, we have a figure of speech and senses, but what about emotion?
Literal Simile: Her hair, like her Grandma Ruth’s, was like the color of this copper kettle, the one Mary would take with her whether Mom liked it or not. (emotion is nostalgia)
Figurative Simile: Her hair shimmered like a sunset in Death Valley, but he was sure she was just a mirage. (emotion is certainty, perhaps sadness or longing that she isn’t real or present)
Here are some more examples from one of the reigning champions of literary device, Shakespeare:
“There’s daggers in men’s smiles.” Macbeth
“And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd old ends stol’n out of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.” Richard III
“If I be waspish, best beware my sting.” The Taming of the Shrew
An imagery writing exercise
Choose a sentence below and add senses and emotion plus a figure of speech of your choice. Use that sentence to kickstart a poem or short story.
Jacob’s room smelled bad.
My grandmother’s locket is old.
I found a cat in the lane.
She wished she could visit the ocean.
He would never get on a plane and no one could make him.
They walked a mile together, then parted ways.
I was late to work again.
She forgot to catch fireflies.
What did you think of this little lesson on imagery? Will you try the writing exercise? Share with us in the comments.
Related reading: What is a prose poem?
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Teneice Durrant is a proud graduate of Spalding University’s MFA program, and The University of Toledo’s MA in English Literature program. She has published four chapbooks and one full-length poetry collection, Glass Corset (2019).
Copyright 2020 ~ Center for Creative Writing
Types of Imagery with Examples
Imagery in literature is a device that uses figurative language which helps the readers to analyze a literary work through their sensory perception and helps creates images to connect with the narrative . In this lesson on Imagery, we will learn the following-
What is an Imagery in Literature?
- 1. Visual Imagery Type
2. Auditory imagery Type
- 3. Gustatory imagery Type
4. Olfactory Imagery Type
5. tactile imagery type, 6. kinesthetic imagery type, 7. organic imagery type , what are literary imagery and figurative imagery types, importance of imagery in literature, what are the examples of imagery in literature, concluding remarks.
This literary device uses an effective creative writing method that evokes the sense of smell, sight, taste, touch, and even internal feeling and emotions. It is not only an external feeling but is also an internal feeling which is involved with imagery. Imagery is the use of language and symbolism in writing which make our five senses active. The word ‘imagery’ gives rise to the creation of mental images and figures.
The word imagery came from the Old French word “imagerie” which means a figure. It allows the readers to paint a beautiful picture and imagine the characters, settings, emotions, and situations in a narrative.
They are quite helpful when describing real-life experiences and gives a realistic touch to the story. It also helps when the author needs to draw analogies between various related things. They give context for the readers to relate to in a better way.
The imagery brings to life the characters of the story through the mental pictures of the readers. These are effective devices used by the authors to create these effects.
Good knowledge of imagery types can help you become a great writer. Do you think you have the right skill set to become a professional writer? Enter your details here and join the Podium Pro team today!
What are the 7 Types of Imagery in Literature?
There are seven kinds of imagery that are used in literature.
1. Visual Imagery Type
Visual imagery is the one where the author uses various visual qualities to create imagery. This can include various shapes, sizes, colours, lights, shadows, and patterns. This is the most common form of imagery that is used in literature. Whenever the term imagery is used people understand visual imagery in literature. They generally use metaphor and simile to create visual imagery.
Auditory Imagery creates an appeal to the reader’s sense of hearing. Creating auditory imagery through writing is not that easy. For instance, creating imageries by author by creating sounds of war in a war novel. Onomatopoeia is mostly used by authors to create auditory imagery.
3. Gustatory imagery Type
Gustatory imagery is the one that appeals to the taste of the readers. This is generally used to depict the food as the character eats it. This may create a sense of gustatory imagery when the readers read about a portion of food.
Olfactory Imagery is the imagery when the author tries to attract the reader’s taste or smell. It helps in depicting the situation through which the characters of the narrative are going through or experiencing. The smell of fresh rain, the smell of fire are some of the examples of olfactory imagery.
Tactile Imagery is the one that creates a sensory effect of touch through text or the writing of the authors. This is used to convey how some things feel when touched. It may be used to convey the sense of texture, temperature, wetness, dryness, and so on. They help in creating empathy for the characters in a narrative.
Kinesthetic Imagery is the one that is used to give a sense of motion by the author. Speed , slowness, falling, or even fighting can be depicted with the use of Kinesthetic imagery. Kinesthetic imagery is very relevant in the era of action movies and screenplays. It also gives a good feel when needed to write about sports, driving, and other actions.
Organic Imagery is a type of imagery that appeals to the most traditional forms of our senses. They are the feeling of hunger, fatigue, fear, and even emotion. They form the basic tenets of human emotions. It moves the readers to the feelings of either joy or sadness. When they are written efficaciously creates intense sorrow and desperateness which the readers can feel immensely.
Literary imagery is the one in which no symbolic language is used. The things are expressed by the author as they are.
For instance, “Her strong perfume gave me a headache.”
Figurative imagery uses comparisons and figurative language to give the readers an image of the characters, objects, or events in literature.
“The sky was as blue as the ocean and the clouds sailed across it like white boats”, is an example of figurative imagery whereby there is comparison to give a beautiful image to the readers.
Imagery is one of the most important ways in which the author’s description of the literature reaches our sensory aids. Senses form the most important gateways to perceive things- which are well hit through imageries in literature. It draws the attention and the interest of the readers towards writing or a piece of literature. Writers can make their writing impactful by using imageries in their writings. It has a direct influence on the minds of the readers because it feels as if they can connect to the feelings of the characters, events, and the happenings of the story.
Imageries are often called “the art of showing not telling” because the author writes so artfully that it creates images in the minds of the readers. Imagery is generally figurative or descriptive as the author uses it. But both of them have the same goal to achieve.
- Shakespearean writers used a huge amount of imagery in their writings. Some of the examples of the use of imagery used by him are:
“My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep.” Romeo and Juliet
“There’s daggers in men’s smiles.” Macbeth
“Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever, –
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.” Much Ado About Nothing
- In the poem “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti, she uses a vivid amount of imagery to attract the interest of the readers. We can see instances of imagery all through the poem.
- The use of imagery in the short story, “the Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Parkins Gilman. He describes the yellow wallpaper through various imageries.
Imagery stimulates the sense and emotions of the readers. They get more attached to writing when they feel it. The imagery just does this particular job in a great way. It can be said that it is a necessary and relevant device that can make creative writing more appealing and aesthetic.
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How Important Is Imagery in Creative Writing?
Imagery is important in creative writing because is brings a story alive and gives the reader a mental image of the words they are reading. Imagery can include visual examples, feelings, touch, taste and smell. Each sense can stimulate the imagination of the reader and make the story more vivid.
You should be able to pick up on examples of seven different types of imagery. These include visual, kinesthetic, organic, and olfactory imagery. Here are some tips for improving your imagery. You can also look for examples of each type in literature.
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Visual imagery in Creative Writing
In fact, visual imagery is a common technique used in screenplays. Quentin Tarantino even used visual imagery in his movie Pulp Fiction. As a writer, you should use this technique to give your readers a vivid picture of the scene that you want them to experience.
What is visual imagery in writing?
You should also use sound to describe different sounds and sensations. In fact, many famous sayings can be described using sounds. Once you’ve done this, your reader will be transported into the story.
Kinesthetic imagery in creative writing
What is the kinesthetic imagery.
In short, imagery is the paintbrush you use to fuel the reader’s imagination. Kinesthetic imagery is particularly effective when used in conjunction with other literary techniques to create a vivid and exciting image.
Organic imagery for creative writing
Regardless of how good the writer is at generating imagery, organic descriptions should have a strong impact on a reader’s emotions. These examples of vivid descriptions can make readers feel sad, fearful, nostalgic, elated, or lost.
What is organic imagery?
Olfactory imagery.
Using olfactory imagery in your writing will allow you to stimulate the reader’s sense of smell. For example, in a novel, you can describe the smell of maple smoked bacon, which would make your readers imagine the rich, pungence smell of the bacon as well as the underlying smoky note. Writers use olfactory imagery to create memorable scenes.
What are examples of olfactory imagery?
Tactile imagery in creative writing.
Tactile imagery appeals to the reader’s sense of touch. Readers can better identify with a character when he or she can feel the physical qualities of the setting and objects.
What is tactile imagery in writing?
In fact, many authors use imagery to give their characters a vivid sense of reality.
Symbolic language
What is the purpose of symbolism.
A writer should keep this in mind when using symbols in his or her work. Here are some ways to use symbols in your creative writing . Just be sure to make sure that your symbols are not overdone or misplaced, or your reader will be confused about their significance.
First, you need to establish the theme and plot of your story. Identify any character traits that need to be communicated. For example, the color yellow can mean fun in the United States, but it could imply courage in Japan.
By using yellow to represent a character’s attributes, you could confuse an American reader. Likewise, using obvious symbolism, such as in the TV series “Game of Thrones,” may distract from the story.
Imagery in Writing: Definition and Examples
- Post published: November 28, 2022
- Post category: Blog
Have you ever read a passage about a sumptuous feast that made your mouth water, or felt your skin tingle while reading about the chill of a frigid winter night? Those reactions are the result of imagery. Imagery is language that appeals to the senses.
What is imagery?
Imagery enhances writing by creating a physical response in the reader through sensory details. Language can elicit a psychological or intellectual reaction in a reader, and imagery is just one more tool a writer has to connect with their audience through sensation and emotion.
Take the following passage from a 1966 article by Joan Didion titled “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream.” In this passage, Didion uses imagery to talk about the region’s wind:
“. . . a harsher California, haunted by the Mohave just beyond the mountains, devastated by the hot dry Santa Ana wind that comes down through the passes at 100 miles an hour and whines through the Eucalyptus windbreaks and works on the nerves.”
A passage with less imagery might depict the winds as being “hot and dry,” but Didion’s rich description goes farther, creating for the reader a feeling of roughness (appealing to touch) in the winds.
Imagery in writing
Writers use imagery to generate a physical or emotional response in the reader. One way to do this is through evocative adjectives. For example, using “shimmering” or “blinding” instead of “bright,” or “piercing” instead of “loud.” There is also a lot of potential for imagery in verbs since those are the words that move your narrative forward. Poignant and direct verbs will bring your reader along for the ride.
Another way to create imagery is through amplification . Amplification is a literary device that exaggerates or emphasizes a certain point. For example, you can tell your reader that you had a long drive home. Or, using amplification, you can tell them the road before you stretched through space and time, jutting into a seemingly endless succession of nights and days that blurred together and deposited you collapsed on your doorstep. That might be a little dramatic, but amplification is all about drama. It also creates the feeling of weariness (which is another appeal to tactile imagery if you imagine the weight of your eyelids).
However, too much imagery can lessen the effectiveness of your writing. If every night is the deepest, blackest night the narrator has ever seen; if every mango is the most succulent they’ve ever eaten; if every wind is the iciest they’ve ever felt, then your reader might get fed up with the drama of it all; if everything is special, then nothing is special.
Imagery in poetry
Imagery doesn’t always require complicated descriptions. Sometimes it only takes a couple of precise words to tap into the reader’s senses. Often, imagery in a poem generates a strong reaction using just a few words. For example, the opening lines of Mary Oliver’s poem “At Black River” effectively send the reader’s imagination to the riverbank in a slim three lines:
“All day its dark, slick bronze soaks in a mossy place . . .”
What are the types of imagery?
Although not everyone can experience all these senses themselves, writing that appeals to the senses can still spark their imagination:
Visual imagery
Visual imagery is imagery that you can see in your mind’s eye. It is the colors, brightness, shape, and movement of something. Visual imagery is the most common form of imagery in writing because it is the best way for a writer to describe settings and characters.
Auditory imagery
Auditory imagery evokes sounds. This might be the whir of machinery or the rush of a river. Any imagery that causes the reader to hear the scene is auditory imagery.
Tactile imagery
Tactile imagery is the imagery of touch. The roughness of a sweater, the coolness of fresh sheets, and the softness of a kitten’s fur are all examples of tactile imagery.
Gustatory imagery
Gustatory imagery makes your mouth water. It is imagery that concerns taste—think about books with recipes, grocery shopping scenes, and dinner descriptions.
Olfactory imagery
Olfactory imagery is the imagery of scent. When a writer describes the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the morning and the reader perks up, that’s an effective use of olfactory imagery. Alternatively, a writer can convey a sense of discomfort to the reader by describing the scent of rot or decay.
What’s the difference between literal and figurative imagery?
There are two types of imagery: literal and figurative.
Literal imagery appeals to the reader’s prior knowledge of something, describing it so precisely that the reader cannot help but feel (or see, hear, taste, or smell) the thing being described.
For example, look at this passage from Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro:
There was bright sunshine, but it must have been raining earlier that day because I can remember how the sun was glinting on the muddy surface of the grass.
The language is straightforward (literal), but it is descriptive in a way that gives the reader a very clear image of the scene. The reader can see the sheen of a damp sunny day.
Figurative imagery relies on language like simile and metaphors to evoke the senses. In this passage from Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin, the narrator uses personification in her description of lunch to generate a tactile effect:
I started to eat, chewing faster and faster, swirling the makgeolli in my bowl with the tips of my chopsticks. Gulping down long drafts. The dense whiteness of the alcohol cutting my throat as it slipped down toward my stomach.
The reader can almost feel the sharpness of the alcohol through the author’s use of figurative imagery.
Examples of imagery
You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. —Maya Angelou, “Still I Rise”
“Not that I had any great feast in mind: I would be stir frying thin slices of beef, onions, green peppers, and bean sprouts with a little salt, pepper, soy sauce, and a splash of beer—a recipe from my single days. The rice was done, the miso soup was warm, and the vegetables were all sliced and arranged in separate piles in a large dish, ready for the wok.” —Haruki Murakami, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
“Adam went into the house and took off his black clothes. He could smell the sweet and now sickish odor of rum about himself. He removed all of his clothes and sponged his skin with yellow soap until the odor was gone from his pores.” —John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Imagery FAQs
Imagery is a literary device that evokes the five senses to create a mental image.
How is imagery used in writing?
Imagery engages the reader’s senses to draw them more deeply into the writing. Powerful imagery can even provoke an emotional response in the reader.
What are the different kinds of imagery?
Imagery can be literal or figurative. Literal imagery uses precise descriptions to generate the image. Figurative imagery relies on figurative language, like similes and metaphors, to engage the reader. Imagery can also correspond to the senses.
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Show More ODE TO PENCILS Oh, pencil, how you glide across a page so effortlessly, like a leaf dancing on still water sending a chorus of ripples across the glassy reflective surface. Yet still you can strike the page with the ferocity of a sweaty, bloodthirsty warrior charging into battle on horseback. Clouded minds become clouded papers, and clouded papers become great ideas. In a world where no one is heard, you’re always willing to listen and to celebrate, and to help communicate. Submissive paper holds indentations even after your markings are erased, leaving behind a permanent reminder of your presence. You allow me to express my crazy, unrealistic ideas. Without you, I’d be a lost, frazzled mess of semi-human. Macaleigh Hendricks …show more content… In all other forms of writing , the use of imagery is not the main component. Although it is always nice to have, it is by no means a requirement or an expectation. Creative writing , however, demands vivid imagery to keep readers engaged and guessing. A creative writer should never explain that someone is bleeding, but rather they should describe the look of the blood glittering in the moonlight flowing from an open gash. As E.L. Doctrow once said, “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensations in the reader—not the fact that it is raining, but the feel of being rained upon.” Creative writers find a way to lace their work with vivid description and leave the reader to interpret deeper meaning. An excellent example of this is Ann Daum’s “Calving Heifers in a March Blizzard”. One image that really stuck with me was, “Finally feel the snot-slick ball of forehead tucked deep between his knees. I slide my palm down the curve of his nose, insert two fingers into his spongy mouth.” Ann could have simply said, “I found its head. I stuck my fingers in its mouth,” but instead, she used vivid description such as, “snot-slick,” and, “spongy mouth.” The essence of creative writing is an exemplary use of vivid imagery, without which it would blend in blanky with expository and persuasive
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Imagery: How to Create Strong Visuals In Writing
Posted on Mar 5, 2023
by Hannah Lee Kidder
Imagery brings your story to life. It paints a picture for your reader to connect with your characters and world, and it just makes your writing more interesting to read.
What is imagery?
Using imagery in your writing means writing tangibly with the five senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. We often see sight and sound in writing, but if you can incorporate the less typical senses, combine them together, and use them creatively, you’ll sculpt a much richer picture for your readers.
When you use imagery of something familiar to someone, it can even elicit certain emotions intentionally. This is a powerful writing tool.
For example, if someone had a younger sibling and you describe the smell of baby powder, that’s a very strong olfactory memory and they’ll likely have memories of their childhood.
So if there’s a new baby in the house, what do older children typically feel? Usually either happiness or jealousy. So depending on how you frame it and the tone, you can purposely make certain readers feel something you want them to feel.
If you can learn to use imagery realistically, relatably, and with strong language, you can pull your readers into your narrative almost immediately.
Let’s look at the five senses and examples of how to use them to craft effective imagery.
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Writing imagery with the 5 senses
Mastering the use of all five senses in prose takes a lot of practice. Let’s look at each sense individually with examples from one of my favorite books, I Am The Messenger .
Markus Zusak is known for using crisp and original imagery to illustrate both the mundane happenings of daily life, as well as extremely weird circumstances.
#1 – Visual
Visual imagery appeals to the reader’s sense of sight. Descriptions of things like colors, shapes, textures, and movement can all work with visual imagery.
Examples of visual imagery:
- “At one point, she holds her hands out, forming a cup. It’s like she’s holding her heart there. It’s bleeding down her arms.”
- “He sips on his longneck beer from start to finish and touches the whiskers that seem glued in patches on his man-boyish face.”
“She looks at me, and she has sunshine-colored hair in a ponytail and clear eyes, like water. The mildest blue I have ever seen.”
These examples also use subtext. In the first one, we have a description of how the woman is sitting–her physical position–but we get so much more than that.
You can see her pain, but instead of just saying “she’s hurting,” Zusak makes the connection through how she’s holding herself.
#2 – Olfactory
Olfactory imagery appeals to the reader’s sense of smell. Descriptions of things like flowers, chemicals, mold, and burning food can all work with olfactory imagery.
Example of olfactory imagery:
- “He’s a cross between a Rottweiler and a German shepherd, and he stinks a kind of stink that’s impossible to rid him of. … The initial stink of dog slaps them in the face, and it’s all over. … I’ve even tried encouraging him to use some kind of deodorant. I’ve rubbed it under his arms in copious amounts. … During that time, he smelled like a Scandanavian toilet.”
Throughout the whole book, the main character talks about how much his dog stinks, how lazy he is, how he’s always in the way, etc., but there’s nothing he loves more than his dog.
The more he describes how gross the dog is, the more the reader can see that he clearly loves him.
#3 – Gustatory
Gustatory imagery appeals to the reader’s sense of taste. Gustatory and olfactory imagery can work together or cross over each other.
Sometimes you can taste smells, and that image might be richer than if you described it with an olfactory image.
Examples of gustatory imagery:
- “It’s older now and a bit stale, the mud cake. But the taste is perfect.”
This quote is taken from a scene where the main character spends time with a very old woman. The subtext here is obvious.
#4 – Auditory
Auditory imagery appeals to the reader’s sense of sound. Leaves crunching under your feet, birds singing, and a stream trickling can work together to describe an early Autumn day much more effectively than visual imagery on its own.
Examples of auditory imagery:
- “The Doorman snores. The breeze outside steps closer. The fridge buzzes.”
- “The ridiculous first notes of “Five Hundred Miles” come on, and I feel like going berserk. Even the Proclaimers are giving me the shits tonight. Their singing’s an abomination.”
A lot of new writers try to write with all senses and go hog wild, describing anything they can think to describe. You can see in all the examples so far that Zusak describes things that reflect how his character is feeling.
“The breeze outside steps closer” does a lot to convey the character’s apprehension–the character is alone, so he personified the breeze to make the character feel watched and nervous.
#5 – Tactile
Tactile imagery appeals to the reader’s sense of touch.
Itchy fabric, a biting cold wind, and a smooth marble describe touch, but what about thirst or the heavy feeling in your stomach when you know you’ve done something wrong?
Examples of tactile imagery:
- “The gun feels warm and sticky, like melting chocolate in my hand.”
- “The girl tries to crawl inside my jacket as the noise from the bedroom reaches us from inside. She hugs me so tight I wonder how her bones survive.”
- “I haven’t shaved, and I feel like death warmed up.”
Here are a couple extra examples that I thought did a good job of combining sense imagery.
- “On those nights, the silence of the street is swollen. It’s scared and slippery as I wait for something to happen.”
- “I suppose he’ll die soon. I’m expecting it, like you do for a dog that’s seventeen. There’s no way to know how I’ll react. He’ll have faced his own placid death and slipped without a sound inside himself. Mostly, I imagine I’ll crouch there at the door, fall onto him, and cry hard into the stench of his fur. I’ll wait for him to wake up, but he won’t. I’ll bury him. I’ll carry him outside, feeling his warmth turn to cold as the horizon frays and falls down in my backyard. For now, though, he’s okay. I can see him breathing. He just smells like he’s dead.”
I love the first example–he uses tactile imagery (swollen and slippery) to describe an auditory image. It’s also a good example of using labels effectively–had he said “He was scared,” that would have been weak writing. But describing the silence as “scared” is original and a great way to divert expectations of the label.
Showing vs Telling to increase imagery in writing
The easiest way to practice writing with imagery is to show instead of tell . This is probably something you’ve heard before, and with good reason: it’s one of the strongest writing skills you can develop.
Once you really understand what “showing” means, your prose will improve.
Telling is when you explain to the reader how to understand or feel something, instead of letting them experience it.
Showing is using description to convey the same things but in a subtler and more impactful way.
For these examples, I’m going to use excerpts from my short collection, Little Birds .
Let’s look at a “telling” version of an idea, then a “showing” version.
In my story Wolverine Frogs , the character is recovering from an attack.
A “telly” way to write the last lines could have been–
“I’m ashamed that I couldn’t stop what happened. I blame myself and hate that he moved on with his life and I can’t.”
The real ending I used is–
“The skin around my nails is still raw. I keep scrubbing them, even though his blood is long gone and replaced by my own many times over.”
The second example conveys what the first one does, but it does so with concrete imagery instead of labeled emotions and abstractions.
That example is showing instead of telling what a character is feeling , but you can show when you’re describing a scene as well.
My story called Winnow has a character observing her bedroom.
I could have said–
“I still live in my childhood room. It’s dirty and old and I wish I could move out.”
But what I wrote is–
“The yellow-tinged spot in the corner of my ceiling is growing with heavy summer rains this year, stretching toward my ceiling fan. The fan is out of balance and squeaks and wheezes with every slow rotation, blurring glow-in-the-dark stars that haven’t glowed in years.”
The description I used still shows that she lives in her childhood room, it’s dingy, she isn’t happy to be there–but it uses concrete imagery to do so.
Realistic and relatable imagery
You can write with the five senses all day long, but if your audience can’t connect to your writing with familiar imagery, it’s worthless.
Relatability is what allows your reader to connect to an emotion through the image.
You can take something that your reader has most likely never experienced and make it relatable through imagery.
For example, say your main character is a hired assassin, and they’re about to make their first kill–they’re nervous! If you describe someone being nervous to assassinate another person, it (hopefully) is not something your reader will find particularly relatable.
If you describe the way they feel and how they’re acting–fumbling hands, fast heartbeat, loud swallow, clenching teeth–that sure sounds like stage fright, doesn’t it? Most people have felt that way.
Even though your reader has never experienced murder, they’ve almost definitely felt nervous! This is what imagery does–it connects your reader to your story, even without them specifically relating to it.
Imagery is great, but language still matters
Using specific details grounded in relatable senses is great–but it still gotta sound nice. Here are some of the previous examples rewritten, with the same details, but… well, worse.
Original–
“The girl tries to crawl inside my jacket as the noise from the bedroom reaches us from inside. She hugs me so tight I wonder how her bones survive.”
A little worse–
“The girl claws at my jacket and gets close to hide from the sounds. She hugs me very tight.”
“She looks at me. Her blonde hair is in a ponytail and her eyes are blue.”
“The ceiling is turning yellow where the rain leaks through. My ceiling fan squeaks loudly as it spins and blurs old glow-in-the-dark star stickers.”
Even with the same imagery, these examples became less effective when we removed the writer’s voice and original language. While you learn to write with solid imagery, pay attention to how you write it.
To strengthen your writing, show your story with relatable imagery , strong language , and all five senses !
Hannah Lee Kidder
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Apr 14, 2020
Visual Imagery Literary Examples: Master Creative Writing
As a new writer, we almost always fall victim to the situation where we ‘tell’ too much and ‘show’ too less; our writing is too narrative but far less depictive.
‘Show, don’t tell’ is one of the most common (sometimes, over-emphasized) rules in fiction writing. And yet, it is neglected.
Check this infographic if you’re struggling to understand the difference between showing and telling .
If you know the differences, and yet you find it a struggle to maintain the balance between showing and telling, bookmark this article that has over 300 Show Don’t Tell Examples . Use these to turn bad writing into great writing.
These sentences are completely at your disposal. You can use them in your writing as they are. (Just put us in attributions, it’ll make us happy).
Before I begin, understand that there are 7 different types of imagery in literature:
This article focuses on visual imagery.
Show Don’t Tell Examples for Visual Imagery:
Visual Imagery is about what writers can show the reader at a particular place; it could range from objects, other people, or something unusual. Let us take a look at the related example sentences:
- The white frost creeping up on the windowpane made her look at her car covered under a 3-inch thick blanket of the snow. ( A view from the balcony )
- The man in the run-down brown leather jacket leaned against the pole; the strands of his greasy hair matted on the left side of his head, his long hawk nose smeared with black grease. The strings of his beard stood pointed and his eyes cast downwards. With a droopy back and a visible limp in his right leg, he struggled to stand. ( Empty Street )
- The deep yellow hues of the sunset drowned in and mixed with the blues of the sea. ( Beach )
- Her smile reached her ears as she bounce-walked to the park, her brown ringlets capered on her bare shoulders and the deep blues of her eyes twinkled in a faraway memory at a distance of miles away. ( Park, Street )
- The wings of the fan curved like a dog’s ears waggled with a raucous squeak at a speed that the air couldn’t reach the one sitting under it. ( Bedroom )
- The children dressed in yellow shirts and blue shorts scuttled all over the park running in each other and giggled upon falling down. Ignoring the soil covering their clothes and knees and their white socks blackened, the little kids cavorted in the park, their giggles and cheer reached the ears of the on-lookers. ( Children’s Park )
- The woman hummed on the tune of a parody song while her hands swilled the towel in a bucket brimmed with unscented foam and then rinsed in the bucket full of greywater. ( Riverside )
- Mommy hauled her little baby up in the air, placed him on the bed and prodded her fingers in his squishy skin eliciting fits of belly-laughs. ( Bedroom )
- The dimples dug deeper in the baby’s cheeks and the lone milky tooth shone in his mouth ( Face )
- Brown horned gazelle meandered about the tall grass blinking away the following flies; cushioned paws didn’t make sound and the gazelle didn’t know the danger lurking behind it. ( Forest )
- Turban-headed men gathered around the massive oak tree, and the grey handlebar mustache clad man in red turban slammed the deck of cards on the rock.
- Alex wandered down the aisle of the mystery/thrillers hoping to find the book he wanted. But his gaze landed on the white nameless spine of all the books. ( Book Shop )
- Lisa found a lone table in the corner of the dingy faded pink wall. Struggling to reach her seat, she bumped and bustled into sweat-reeking people carrying burgers and coffee garbed brass trays. ( Eating Joint )
- Without waiting for a single person, Maia started walking in the direction of the mountain, ignoring the hoots of the owls and howls of the hounds, through the tall bushes ladened with thorns. ( Definitely some eerie place )
- Vanessa didn’t have to wait for the clock to strike 2, her mother stormed out of her room, slamming the door behind her and glaring at her daughter, daggers in her eyes ready to be shot at Vanessa.
As you have noticed, some of these examples are pretty long sentences that appear to be the chunks of specific details about a person, place or something that’s in that place. These sentences are completely at your disposal. You can use them in your writing as they are. (Just put us in attributions, it’ll make us happy).
Inspire Creative Writing: 6 More types of Literary Imagery & Examples
Auditory Imagery: 30+ Auditory Imagery Examples & Descriptions Olfactory Imagery: 50+ Olfactory Imagery Examples & Descriptions Gustatory Imagery: 80+ Gustatory Imagery Examples & Descriptions Tactile Imagery: 100+ Tactile Imagery Examples & Descriptions Kinesthetic Imagery: 50+ Kinesthetic Imagery Examples & Descriptions Organic Imagery: 50+ Organic Imagery Examples & Descriptions
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Yosef Bhakti Kristian
Kati Farkas (Katalin Farkas)
It is part of the phenomenology of perceptual experiences that objects seem to be presented to us. The first guide to objects is their perceptual presence. Further reflection shows that we take the objects of our perceptual experiences to be among the causes of our experiences. However, not all causes of the experience are also objects of the experience. This raises the question indicated in the title of this paper. We argue that taking phenomenal presence as the guide to the objects of perception, we can see that at least in two sensory modalities, smell and touch, there is no uniform answer to this question. The objects of olfactory and tactile experiences can move along the causal chain. Accordingly, the content of olfactory and tactile experience may vary.
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Why do Authors Use Imagery?
Authors use imagery to do what Charlotte Perkins Gilman does in “The Yellow Paper”: to create rich, livable experiences using only the senses.
Think of imagery as a doorway into the world of the text. It allows the reader to see, smell, hear, taste, and feel everything that happens in the story.
Moreover, this device highlights the most important sensory descriptions. Consider where you are right now, as you’re reading this article. There are many different sensory experiences vying for your attention, but your brain filters those senses out because they’re not important. You might be ignoring the sounds of your neighbors and passing street cars, or the taste of a meal you just had, or the feeling of your chair pressing into your body.
Imagery in literature performs the same function: it highlights the most important sensory information that the reader needs to step inside the story. Great imagery examples set the stage for great storytelling , goading the reader into the world of the work.
For a more in-depth answer on “why do authors use imagery?”, check out our article on Show, Don’t Tell Writing .
What is imagery in poetry? Is it any different than in prose?
While this device is the same for both poetry and prose, you might notice that imagery in poetry is more economic—it relies on fewer words. Take the following excerpt from Louise Glück’s poem October :
“Daybreak. The low hills shine
ochre and fire, even the fields shine.
I know what I see; sun that could be
the August sun, returning
everything that was taken away —”
The imagery in this excerpt is stunning, particularly “the low hills shine ochre and fire.” The reader can imagine a roiling green landscape tinged like a flame in the early sunrise, contributing to the speaker’s sense of hope that one often feels at the start of a new day.
In poetry, as in prose, images are often juxtaposed next to feelings, creating a sensory and emotive experience. The language that each form uses to create those experiences is similar, but the poetic form encourages an economy of language, making imagery in poetry more concise .
5 Types of Imagery
Corresponding with the 5 senses, there are 5 types of imagery at a writer’s disposal. (Actually, there’s 7—but we’ll handle those last two separately.)
Every writer should have all 5 types of imagery in their toolkit. To create a rich, believable experience for the reader, appealing to each of the reader’s senses helps transport them into the world of the story. No, you shouldn’t focus on all 5 senses at the same time—in real life, nobody can pay attention to all of their senses at once. But, you should be able to use all 5 types of imagery when your writing calls for it.
Let’s look at each type and some more imagery examples.
1. Visual Imagery Definition
Visual imagery is description that stimulates the eyes. Specifically, your mind’s eye: when you can visualize the colors, shapes, forms, and aesthetics of something that’s described to you, the writer is employing visual imagery.
When you can visualize the colors, shapes, forms, and aesthetics of something that’s described to you, the writer is employing visual imagery.
This is the most common form of imagery in literature, as the writer relies on visual description to create a setting, describe characters, and show action. Without visual imagery, it is much harder to employ the other types of imagery (though writers have certainly done this in the event that a character is blind or blinded).
Visual Imagery Examples
In each example, the visual imagery has been bolded.
“ A field of cotton —
as if the moon
had flowered .”
—Matsuo Bashō, from Basho: The Complete Haiku , translated by Jane Reichhold.
“While talking to my mother I neaten things. Spines of books by the phone.
in a china dish. Fragments of eraser that dot the desk . She speaks
of death. I begin tilting all the paperclips in the other direction .”
—Anne Carson, from “ Lines ” in Decreation.
2. Auditory Imagery Definition
Auditory imagery is description that stimulates the ears. When you can hear the sounds of nature, machinery, or someone’s voice, it’s because of the description employed in the author’s auditory imagery.
When you can hear sounds like nature, machinery, or someone’s voice, it’s because of the description employed in the author’s auditory imagery.
Do note that, while you might be able to hear dialogue in your head, dialogue alone doesn’t count as auditory imagery. The sounds need to be described using adjectives, adverbs, and especially comparisons to other images.
Auditory Imagery Examples
In each example, the auditory imagery has been bolded.
“Few believe we’re in the middle of the end
because ruin can happen as slowly as plaque
blocking arteries, and only later feels as true
as your hand resting on my hip, both of us
quiet as roses waiting for the bees to arrive. ”
—Julie Danho, excerpt from “I Want to Eat Bugs With You Underground” in Bennington Review .
“Our ears are stoppered
in the bee-hum . And Charlie,
laughing wonderfully ,
beard stained purple
by the word juice ,
goes to get a bigger pot.”
—Robert Hass, excerpt from “Picking Blackberries with a Friend Who Has Been Reading Jacques Lacan” in Praise.
3. Tactile Imagery Definition
Tactile imagery is description that stimulates your sense of touch. Sensations like itching, stickiness, and the warmth of sunlight all count as tactile imagery, which appeals to the way your skin might feel in that moment.
Sensations like itching, stickiness, and the warmth of sunlight all count as tactile imagery, which appeals to the way your skin might feel in that moment.
Tactile experiences only refer to external sensations, primarily on the skin. When a writer describes internal sensations, they’re using organic imagery, which we’ll define later in this article.
Tactile Imagery Examples
In each example, the tactile imagery has been bolded.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, excerpt from Journal of My Other Self.
“Are All the Break-Ups in Your Poems Real?
If by real you mean as real as a shark tooth stuck
in your heel , the wetness of a finished lollipop stick ,
the surprise of a thumbtack in your purse —
then Yes, every last page is true, every nuance,
bit, and bite .”
—Aimee Nezhukumatathil, excerpt from “Are All the Break-Ups in Your Poems Real?” in Poetry Foundation .
4. Olfactory Imagery Definition
Olfactory imagery is description that stimulates the nose. By describing the peculiarities of a scent—its richness, pungence, weight, distinctness, or physical effect—the author transports the reader through the use of olfactory imagery.
By describing the peculiarities of a scent—its richness, pungence, weight, distinctness, or physical effect—the author transports the reader through the use of olfactory imagery.
Olfactory looks like a strange word, but it comes from the Latin for “to smell,” and we have an olfactory bulb in our brains which processes smells. Fun fact: the olfactory bulb is situated just in front of the hippocampus, which processes memory. As a result, smells often stimulate stronger memories than the other senses, so you can use olfactory imagery to arouse both smell and memory.
Olfactory Imagery Examples
In each example, the olfactory imagery has been bolded.
—Patricia Hampl, excerpt from The Florist’s Daughter.
“Why is it that the poets tell
So little of the sense of smell?
These are the odors I love well:
The smell of coffee freshly ground;
Or rich plum pudding, holly crowned;
Or onions fried and deeply browned. ”
—Christopher Morley, excerpt from “ Smells ”.
5. Gustatory Imagery Definition
Gustatory imagery is description that stimulates the tongue. If you’ve ever done a wine or coffee tasting, you know exactly how complex a flavor can be. Gustatory imagery captures a flavor’s richness, acidity, earthiness, sweetness, bitterness, harshness, etc.
Gustatory imagery captures a flavor’s richness, acidity, earthiness, sweetness, bitterness, harshness, etc.
This is perhaps the rarest of the 5 types of imagery, as authors don’t seem to dwell on tastes too much, but gustatory imagery can absolutely throw the reader into different cultures, cuisines, and histories.
Gustatory Imagery Examples
In each example, the gustatory imagery has been bolded.
—E.M. Forster, excerpt from A Room With a View.
“I have eaten
that were in
you were probably
for breakfast
they were delicious
and so cold .”
—William Carlos Williams, “ This Is Just To Say ”.
Writers have another 2 types of imagery at their disposal: kinesthetic imagery and organic imagery. We include these as separate types of imagery because they describe senses that are more abstract than the other 5.
Kinesthetic Imagery Definition
Kinesthetic imagery, also called kinesthesia, refers to descriptions of motion. The sensations one feels when on the move, like running against the wind or swimming through brisk waters, are examples of kinesthetic imagery.
The sensations one feels when on the move, like running against the wind or swimming through brisk waters, are examples of kinesthetic imagery.
Kinesthesia might seem similar to tactile imagery, but the difference is that kinesthesia always describes movement. So, a bee sting is tactile, but a bee whizzing past your arm is kinesthetic; the coldness of a wall is tactile, but the feeling of a cold wall moving against you is kinesthetic.
Kinesthetic Imagery Examples
—Charles Dickens, excerpt from A Tale of Two Cities.
—Brit Bennett, excerpt from The Mothers .
Organic Imagery Definition
Organic imagery refers to descriptions of internal sensation. When the writer uses concrete description to show an internal landscape of feelings, pains, emotions, and desires, they’re using organic imagery.
When the writer uses concrete description to show an internal landscape of feelings, pains, emotions, and desires, they’re using organic imagery.
Organic imagery can be physical, like stomach pain or a headache, but it can also be emotional: the feeling of your heart dropping into your gut, or the burn of jealousy in your temples.
Organic Imagery Examples
—S. K. Osborn, excerpt from There’s A Lot of Good Reasons to Go Out West .
“So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood. ”
—Robert Frost, excerpt from “ Birches ”.
The importance of descriptive, concrete imagery to creative writing cannot be understated. To master this literary device, try your hand at the following 5 writing exercises.
1. Show, Don’t Tell
“Show, don’t tell” writing is writing that uses concrete details to transmit an experience to the reader, rather than asserting the experience itself. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, you can learn about it (and find many more imagery examples) at this article .
Here’s an example of showing instead of telling:
- Telling: Mom stomped into the doorway, furious.
- Showing: The only thing chillier than the breeze from outside was mother herself, her bootsteps making the floorboards shake, her brow furrowed so tightly I worried her face might fall off.
In this exercise, rewrite the following phrases into complete “show, don’t tell” statements. The below sentences are “telling” sentences where the writer is chewing the reader’s food—asserting an experience without relying on the senses.
“Telling” statements:
- The girl felt warm.
- The full moon was bright.
- Her heart dropped.
- His dinner wafted through the kitchen.
- The cat chased birds.
- The wind swept the trees.
- Her bike wouldn’t budge.
- The berries tasted fresh.
- Their socks got wet.
- The music echoed down the hall.
The development of precise images is essential to great poetry, storytelling, and “show, don’t tell” writing. While poetry writing can linger in description, story writing is best kept to action. This checklist from Writer’s Digest does a great job of explaining how to make this device action-focused.
2. Look At This Photograph
Find an interesting photograph. It can be a physical photo, it can sit somewhere in your camera roll, it can be a classical painting, or you can simply look for something unique on a site like Unsplash .
Now, describe that photograph using the different types of imagery— except for visual imagery. Try to convey the experience of the photograph without showing the reader what it actually looks like. The challenge of describing something visual without relying on visual images will help you sharpen your descriptive writing.
Here’s an example, using this landscape painting by John Wootton:
- Auditory: The men whistled over the crash of waves reaching the shore, and the horse whinnied along with the work.
- Tactile: Water lapped along the men’s ankles, as cold as a snake’s glistening eyes.
- Olfactory: The salty air perforated each man’s nostrils, punctuating the air with a briny sharpness.
- Gustatory: Salt water waves occasionally crashed into the men’s lips, acrid and mouth-puckering. While they worked they thought about home, the warm taste of dinner satiating a hard day’s work.
- Kinesthetic: The barely moving air graced each man’s legs like a cat brushing past, and all was still.
- Organic: The sun crept below the horizon, and in the dark the forest seemed like it might come to life, like it was harboring a dark and heady tomorrow .
When you have an example for each non-visual image, try to combine them into a singular effective description of the photograph.
Do all of these imagery examples make sense? Do they even come close to describing the painting? Absolutely not. But just the attempt at describing a landscape painting through taste or touch helps juice your creativity, and you might stumble upon some really beautiful writing in the process.
If you enjoyed this exercise, you might be interested in the Ekphrastic Poetry Challenge at Rattle .
3. Think Abstractly
Great imagery relies on the use of great concrete words, particularly nouns and verbs (though some adjectives, too). The opposite of a concrete word is an abstract word: a word which describes an idea, not an image.
Examples of abstract words are “satisfaction,” “mercantilism,” “love,” “envy,” “disgust,” and “bureaucracy.” None of those words have concrete images: they might have symbols (like “heart” for “love”), but no single image defines any of those words.
For this exercise, generate a list of abstract words. If you’re struggling to come up with good words, you can use a list of abstractions like this one . Once you’ve settled on a good list, select a word that particularly excites you.
Use this abstract word as the title of a poem or story. Now, write that poem or story, using concrete description to show the reader exactly how that abstraction feels and looks. Do not use the abstract word, or any synonyms or antonyms, in your writing—try to avoid abstractions altogether.
At the end of your exercise, you might end with a poem like “Love’s Philosophy” by Percy Bysshe Shelley .
4. Synesthesia
Synesthesia is a literary device in which the writer uses more than one sense to describe something. For example, we often use the phrase “cool colors” for blues and greens, and “warm colors” for reds and oranges. “Cool” and “warm” are tactile, and since a color itself cannot be warm or cold, we’re able to represent the color through synesthesia.
Synesthesia is also a rare psychological condition, in which a person involuntarily experiences something in multiple senses. For example, someone with synesthesia might say that the number 12 is reddish-orange, or that the sound of a guitar tastes like rain.
For this exercise, describe the following items using synesthesia. Describe sounds using colors or tastes, describe smells using memories or movements. Get creative! You don’t need to have synesthesia to write synesthesia, just try to break free from the conventional use of the different types of imagery.
Describe the following using synesthesia:
- The sound of your best friend’s voice. (What color, shape, smell, taste, or feeling does it have?)
- The disaster girl meme .
- The taste of vanilla ice cream.
- The letter J.
- A freezing shower.
- The smell of the rain.
- The feeling of sandpaper against skin.
For example, I might write that the letter J is the color of a forest at dusk, blue-green and pregnant with night.
Does that make sense to anyone else but me? Probably not! But that’s the point: be creative, be weird, be synesthetic.
5. Use Only Metaphors and Similes
For this exercise, you are free to describe whatever you would like. Describe an inanimate object, a food you enjoy, your pet, your archnemesis, the wind, the sea, the sun, or really anything you want to write about.
Whatever you choose, you must only describe that object using metaphors and similes . For a primer on these two literary devices, check out our article Simile Vs Metaphor Vs Analogy .
Do not use adjectives or adverbs, and only use nouns in comparison with your object.
Try to generate a list of metaphors and similes. For example, if your object is a rubber ball, you can say it “moves like a sparrow,” “bounces like children on trampolines,” and “waits to be noticed, a planet in hiding.”
Try to write for 15-20 minutes, and if you’ve generated a long enough list, you might even consider organizing your metaphors and similes into a poem or flash story. As with our other exercises, use compelling imagery, and show us something new about your object!
Transport Your Readers at Writers.com
Why do authors use imagery? To transport their readers to new and believable worlds. To learn more about imagery and practice it in your writing, take a look at the upcoming courses at Writers.com .
Sean Glatch
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Blissful Bookworms
A literary space for all things bookish
Literature Techniques : Different Types Of Sensory Imagery (With Examples)
If you’re a writer or you’ve studied creative writing, chances are you’ve come across the expression ‘ Show, Don’t Tell. ’
In literature and poetry, this is called ‘Sensory Imagery’ — the use of different expressions and figurative language to evoke a sensory experience in the reader.
When authors use the imagery in their writings, they provide readers with the sensory details to help them fully understand the imaginary world created in the book.
Sensory imagery works by engaging a reader’s five senses (sight, smell, sound, taste, and feeling) with concrete details that allows them to create vivid imagery of what is happening.
Through a combination of sensory imageries, authors arm the readers with information that gives them the pleasure of arriving at their own judgements through perceptual clues.
Want to see how?
Scroll down.
Visual Imagery
The visual imagery appeals to our sense of sight. The author uses similes, metaphor, and personification in the descriptions to narrate what he wants his readers to see.
Visual Imagery Examples:
- The deep yellow hues of the sunset drowned in and mixed with the blues of the sea.
- The sunset was the most gorgeous they’d ever seen; the clouds were edged with pink and gold.
Auditory Imagery
The auditory imagery appeals to our sense of sound. It may include pleasant and unpleasant descriptions of sounds. Some authors also use words that imitate sounds to create the auditory experience for readers.
Auditory Imagery Examples:
- The clank of the keys
- The clang of the plates
- Crow of the rooster in the morning
- The chirping of the birds
- Whistling crescendo of the nightingale
- The rustle of the papers
Olfactory Imagery
The olfactory imagery appeals to our sense of smell by describing something the narrator or protagonist inhales. It may include off-putting odours, pleasant fragrances, and other familiar scents.
Olfactory Imagery Examples:
- The honeysuckle fragrant lawn lured the insects and flies; I could hear the crickets calling and singing their eerie song of the night.
- The scent of wet soil reached my nostrils and my eyes closed on their own accord.
Gustatory Imagery
The Gustatory imagery appeals to our sense of taste by describing something the narrator or protagonist tastes. It’s most effective when the author describes a taste a reader might have experienced before so they can recall it from their memory.
Gustatory Imagery Examples:
- The salty, sweet flavour of saltwater taffy was Carrie’s very favourite thing about going to the beach for summer vacation.
- Joe plucked an apple right from the tree and crunched into it, the tart juices filling his mouth and running down his chin.
Tactile Imagery
The tactile imagery appeals to our sense of touch by describing something the protagonist feels on their body. It may include the feel of different physical sensations, temperatures, and textures.
Tactile Imagery Examples:
- As I tumbled down the hill, the loose rocks raced alongside me, pricking my hands and face like a hundred tiny knives.
- She started to sweat so feverishly that, when she rose from the leather couch, her slippery skin stuck to it like a Command Strip
Now that you have a thorough understanding of literary elements to use in your own writing, it’s time to put your skills to use! The only way to do this is to practice and actually sit down to write.
Need some help? Take a look at this compilation of best writing advice from famous authors
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Which Of The Following Best Defines Imagery In Creative Writing? The 21 Correct Answer
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Are you looking for an answer to the topic “ Which of the following best defines imagery in creative writing? “? We answer all your questions at the website Ecurrencythailand.com in category: +15 Marketing Blog Post Ideas And Topics For You . You will find the answer right below.
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Table of Contents
What is imagery in creative writing?
Imagery Definition: What is Imagery? Imagery refers to language that stimulates the reader’s senses . By evoking those senses through touch, taste, sound, smell, and sight, the writer imparts a deeper understanding of the human experience, connecting with the reader through a shared sensory experience.
Which of the following best defines imagery?
Imagery is the use of figurative language to represent the objects, ideas, and actions in such a way that the appeals to the physical senses . Imagery makes the use of particular the words that create the visual representation with ideas in minds.
Imagery (Literary Device)
Images related to the topicImagery (Literary Device)
What is an example of imagery?
Common Examples of Imagery
Taste: The familiar tang of his grandmother’s cranberry sauce reminded him of his youth . Sound: The concert was so loud that her ears rang for days afterward. Sight: The sunset was the most gorgeous they’d ever seen; the clouds were edged with pink and gold.
What is the definition of imagery quizlet?
Imagery. The use of vivid description and figurative language, usually rich in sensory words, to create pictures or images in reader’s minds . Figurative language.
How do you identify imagery?
An easy way to spot imagery in a text is to pay attention to words, phrases, and sentences that connect with your five senses (sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound). That’s because writers know that in order to capture a reader’s attention, they need to engage with them mentally, physically, and emotionally.
What is imagery and types of imagery?
Imagery includes language that appeals to all of the human senses, including sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell . While imagery can and often does benefit from the use of figurative language such as metaphors and similes, imagery can also be written without using any figurative language at all.
What is visual imagery?
Visual imagery describes what we see: comic book images, paintings, or images directly experienced through the narrator’s eyes . Visual imagery may include: Color, such as: burnt red, bright orange, dull yellow, verdant green, and Robin’s egg blue. Shapes, such as: square, circular, tubular, rectangular, and conical.
See some more details on the topic Which of the following best defines imagery in creative writing? here:
Imagery definition: 5+ types of imagery in literature – writers ….
Imagery refers to language that stimulates the reader’s senses. By evoking those senses through touch, taste, sound, smell, and sight, the …
+ Read More
What is Imagery — Definition & Examples in Literature & Poetry
Imagery is a literary device used in poetry, novels, and other writing that uses vivid description that appeals to a readers’ senses to create …
+ View More Here
What is the best definition of the term imagery? – Brainly.in
Imagery is the use of figurative language to represent the objects, ideas, and actions in such a way that the appeals to the physical senses …
Imagery: Definition and Examples | LiteraryTerms.net
Imagery includes figurative and metaphorical language to improve the reader’s experience through their senses.
What is visual imagery in literature?
Visual Imagery
It uses qualities of how something looks visually to best create an image in the reader’s head . These visual qualities can be shapes, color, light, shadow, or even patterns. It is one of the most common types of imagery as it allows readers to better describe the world and characters of a novel or poem.
What are 5 examples of imagery?
- The autumn leaves are a blanket on the ground.
- Her lips tasted as sweet as sugar.
- His words felt like a dagger in my heart.
- My head is pounding like a drum.
- The kitten’s fur is milky.
- The siren turned into a whisper as it ended.
What is Imagery?
Images related to the topicWhat is Imagery?
What are the types of imagery in literature?
- Visual Imagery. Visual imagery is the most common form of imagery in literature. …
- Olfactory Imagery. Science has proven our sense of smell is our strongest link to the past. …
- Gustatory Imagery. …
- Tactile Imagery. …
- Auditory Imagery. …
- Live in Literature.
What is imagery English?
Imagery is the general term covering the use of literary devices which encourage the reader to form a mental picture in their mind about the way something or someone looks, sounds, behaves, etc . The language used often relates to one or more of our five senses.
What is imagery literature quizlet?
What is Imagery? Imagery is… the use of descriptive words or phrases to create word pictures, or images .
When can imagery be used quizlet?
Imagery can be used in three ways, mental practice of a skill over time, preparatory imagery for competition, and imagery as part of multi-modal mental training programs . Using imagery immediately before a performance can help athletes perform better.
Which sentence contains the strongest example of imagery quizlet?
Answer. Answer: Stars shimmered in the sky like a sea of tiny candles. this is the strongest example of Imagery.
What is imagery in art?
Imagery comes from image and originally referred to physical things like statues. Now it is more often used of an artist’s or writer’s depictions (“Shakespeare’s imagery shows a wide knowledge of the world”) or of the pictures of the world in someone’s mind. Think of imagery as being the stockpile of your imagination.
What does imagery mean in poetry?
Elements of a poem that invoke any of the five senses to create a set of mental images . Specifically, using vivid or figurative language to represent ideas, objects, or actions.
What does imagery mean in figurative language?
Imagery : when figurative language (like metaphor or simile ) evokes as a kind mental image any of the five senses , we call this imagery . “She is the sun” (a simile ) suggests imagery of light and warmth (the senses of sight and touch); thus she is likened—compared—to the sun in a positive ways though the imagery.
Creative Writing: Imagery
Images related to the topicCreative Writing: Imagery
What are the 7 types of imagery and their definitions?
To reinforce their messages, poets employ auditory, gustatory, kinesthetic, olfactory, organic, tactile or visual imagery , which are the seven major types that literary authorities recognize. Many poets combine any or all of these categories in their work.
Why is visual imagery used?
Why use visual imagery? Generating an image while reading requires that the reader be actively engaged with the text . Creating mental images while reading can improve comprehension.
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Sensory Imagery in Creative Writing: Types, Examples, and Writing Tips Written by MasterClass Last updated: Sep 29, 2021 • 6 min read Sensory imagery is a literary device writers employ to engage a reader's mind on multiple levels. Sensory imagery explores the five human senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell.
Examples of imagery can be found in all kinds of writing, such as fiction, nonfiction, novels, stories, essays, poetry, and plays. Imagery is also found in pop culture, movies, songs, and everyday speech. Below are examples of imagery taken from excerpts of two novels and two poems as well as examples from a movie, two songs, and various sayings.
Imagery in writing. Writers use imagery to generate a physical or emotional response in the reader. One way to do this is through evocative adjectives. For example, using "shimmering" or "blinding" instead of "bright," or "piercing" instead of "loud.". There is also a lot of potential for imagery in verbs since those are the ...
Imagery is descriptive language used to appeal to a reader's senses: touch, taste, smell, sound, and sight. Original description gives writing a sense of honesty and believability, while concise details can help enhance your focus.. Visual imagery is the most obvious and typical form of imagery.
I) Types of Sensory imagery in literature: II) 1. Visual Imagery in Literature III) 2. Auditory Imagery in Literature IV) 3. Olfactory Imagery in Literature V) 4. Gustatory Imagery in Literature VI) 5. Tactile Imagery in Literature VII) 6. Kinesthetic Imagery in Literature VIII) 7. Organic Imagery in Literature IX) Winding Up:
There are seven main types of imagery: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, kinesthetic, and organic. Visual: Visual imagery is one of the most commonly used forms of imagery in creative writing. It creates a mental image in the reader's mind, allowing them to visualize a writer's descriptions.
When used well, visual imagery can transport readers to a 15th-century castle in Italy or a bumpy road in Ireland, riddled with puddles and sheep. Being able to describe a scene is one of the most important elements of creative writing. Below, we'll explore ten visual imagery examples to help you get your creative juices flowing.
Imagery is one of the most important literary devices or tools in the writer's tool box. Because literature (stories, poems, memoirs) is the written expression of a human condition, we as writers must draw on what makes us human to convey these experiences in the hopes of making a connection with the reader. "Imagery is a literary device ...
What are the 7 Types of Imagery in Literature? 1. Visual Imagery Type 2. Auditory imagery Type 3. Gustatory imagery Type 4. Olfactory Imagery Type 5. Tactile Imagery Type 6. Kinesthetic Imagery Type 7. Organic Imagery Type What are Literary Imagery and Figurative Imagery Types? Importance of Imagery in Literature
There are five main types of imagery, each related to one of the human senses: Visual imagery (sight) Auditory imagery (hearing) Olfactory imagery (smell) Gustatory imagery (taste) Tactile imagery (touch) Some people may also argue that imagery can be kinesthetic (related to movement) or organic (related to sensations within the body).
You should be able to pick up on examples of seven different types of imagery. These include visual, kinesthetic, organic, and olfactory imagery. Here are some tips for improving your imagery. You can also look for examples of each type in literature. Visual imagery in Creative Writing
Imagery in writing. Writers use imagery to generate a physical or emotional response in the reader. One way to do this is through evocative adjectives. For example, using "shimmering" or "blinding" instead of "bright," or "piercing" instead of "loud.". There is also a lot of potential for imagery in verbs since those are the ...
Creative writing, however, demands vivid imagery to keep readers engaged and guessing. A creative writer should never explain that someone is bleeding, but rather they should describe the look of the blood glittering in the moonlight flowing from an open gash. As E.L. Doctrow once said, "Good writing is supposed to evoke sensations in the ...
Examples of visual imagery: "At one point, she holds her hands out, forming a cup. It's like she's holding her heart there. It's bleeding down her arms." "He sips on his longneck beer from start to finish and touches the whiskers that seem glued in patches on his man-boyish face."
Visual Imagery Literary Examples: Master Creative Writing | by Bushra Rahmani | Medium 500 Apologies, but something went wrong on our end. Refresh the page, check Medium 's site status, or...
Imagery in literature Imagery is found throughout literature in poems, plays, stories, novels, and other creative compositions Example Excerpt describing a fish: his brown skin hung in strips like ancient wallpaper, and its pattern of darker brown was like wallpaper: shapes like full-blown roses stained and lost through age.
Literature abounds with imagery examples, as authors have used this device to connect with their readers at a personal level. ... The importance of descriptive, concrete imagery to creative writing cannot be understated. To master this literary device, try your hand at the following 5 writing exercises. 1. Show, Don't Tell
The auditory imagery appeals to our sense of sound. It may include pleasant and unpleasant descriptions of sounds. Some authors also use words that imitate sounds to create the auditory experience for readers. Auditory Imagery Examples: The clank of the keys. The clang of the plates. Crow of the rooster in the morning. The chirping of the birds.
What is imagery in creative writing? Imagery Definition: What is Imagery? Imagery refers to language that stimulates the reader's senses.By evoking those senses through touch, taste, sound, smell, and sight, the writer imparts a deeper understanding of the human experience, connecting with the reader through a shared sensory experience.
Examples Of Symbolism In Creative Writing - 4.8/5. PenMyPaper offers you with affordable 'write me an essay service' We try our best to keep the prices for my essay writing as low as possible so that it does not end up burning a hole in your pocket. The prices are based on the requirements of the placed order like word count, the number of ...