Readers can grow bored with the same old descriptions writers use to describe bodily sensations. So we're going remedy that using an excellent skill that truly ups your game to make you stand out from other writers.
WHAT IS A VISCERAL SENSATION?
Visceral sensations are simply harsh sensations a person may experience in times of incredible fear or disgust or other types of negativity.
This can also be used for accenting very positive sensations.
If a scene has a strong positive situation and then you completely rip that away with a suddenly horrific situation that takes the reader by surprise, giving them a visceral sensation, the scene has far more impact.
And the opposite is also true. If you go from a truly horrible situation to a resolution with an epically-positive outcome, you're creating an amazing amount of pleasure for your readers. So visceral sensations are extremely important to utilize in your stories of you want readers to really love your books.
When a person is in a terrifying situation, their brain records the event in memory much stronger, making it hard to forget. If you can do this with your visceral sensations, it'll be hard for the readers to forget your book. That's a very good thing for you as an author.
So, how do you create visceral sensations for your readers?
It's all about the descriptions. I could say that my character's heart sank or stomach wrenched, but that's fairly common. You can do that at unimportant moments where you don't need impact. But when you need pact, you use a description more like this:
Example:
That beautiful goddess of a woman hangs all over my boyfriend and he likes it. He's totally into it. A demonic hand seems to reach up from below and digs it's jagged nails into my heart, dragging it into the broiling out of my stomach.
Clearly, that's a lot stronger, more dramatic imagery that's likely to cause a visceral sensation in a reader.
What I do is make a pass through each of my books when they're almost in their final draft state solely for the purpose of dressing up my descriptions I want to have impact. I don't write those during my first draft. The first draft is all about speed. The third draft is all about the final touches for maximum impact. And after it's complete, you give it to a proofer who cleans it up.
Margie Lawson has a great course on visceral emotions, and she's the one I learned it from. If you want this taught in depth, check her website out at www.MargieLawson.com. It's not free, but it's great for a more in-depth version of this.
ASSIGNMENT
Now, take what you've just learned and use it to make passes through your books to dress up your descriptions you want to have maximum impact. After you've done that on a couple of your books, it'll come much more naturally to you. The brain is plastic (adaptive, malleable), so it adapts to what you put your focus on. Studies prove that the more you practice creative activities like this one, the better your brain gets at them.
Good luck, and as always, please vote for this chapter if you liked it!
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The Art of Writing: How to Write Bestselling Novels
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