Austin Bunn is an award-winning screenwriter, playwright, and fiction-writer. His work has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Science and Nature Writing, Best American Fantasy, among many others. His short film, “Campfire,” won the 2023 Provincetown International Film Festival’s award for Best Queer Short Film. Bunn is an Associate Professor at Cornell University.
You will learn how to use sensory details to convey different points of view.
STEP 1
Watch the video and then answer these questions, in your writing journal: “Imagine you are walking into a new place for the first time. What kinds of details do you notice: the way the room smells, the brightness of the lights, etc.?”
STEP 2
Next, write a paragraph that uses sensory language to describe a room that is significant to you, on page 1 of the Notice What You Notice – Handout. If you can, stand in the middle of the room and look around: What do you see, and do any of those sights bring up memories for you? Do you know any telling details about the features of the room that most people don’t?
STEP 3
This time, imagine you are a different person entering that room. Which details would they notice—would those details be the same or different as the...
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