Inspiration to Just Write by Maureen Stanton:
“Most readers know that sensation when immersed in a book of being transported from their couches or chairs into another world, where a film unspools in the mind’s eye.
The engines that power this transport are the smallest components of craft: sensory details. Concrete sensory details paint a story so compelling and vivid that as readers, through the awesome power of our imaginations, see, hear, smell and feel the story. This process is a bilateral exchange that I think of as literary transference: the story enters the reader’s mind, and thus the reader enters the story, as if through a magic portal.
It is during this transference process when mere black and white words—hieroglyphs–are alchemized into the images, smells, sounds, and sensations that transport readers deeply into stories. This exchange yields more than the pleasure of being whisked into another realm; it allows us to flex our powers of empathy as we vicariously experience others’ lives.”
To read the full article, posted on Brevity Blog, April 11, 2025, click Taste the Gazpacho, Smell the Hyacinths: Literary Transference in Memoir.
Just Write!
