Up: [[Life Writing]] Related: [[Image]] Course: The Image: Heart of the Poem with Ellen Bass for 27 Powers Created: 2024-05-22 Almost everything we know comes through the senses . When we create those sensations with words, we get an image. Abstract words like ‘progress’ seem distant. Concrete words like ‘sunlight’ are solid, right next to direct experience. We respond more to the particular than the general. Too many abstract words sounds like white noise. We also respond to images more viscerally than we do to abstractions. The more you use them, the more the reader will have an experience themselves rather than listen to you tell about your experiences. Two basic ways writing presents images is literally and figuratively. Literal is detail. Figurative is where something is compared to something else in order to present it more vividly. In order to imagine, we begin with an image.