If you find this resource list useful and want to say ‘thanks’ by buying me a coffee, you can do that on Kofi
Listed below are items referred to in my book Description Basics: Painting with Words (2025).
I will update this resource list as other books in the series are published.
Resources for the second book in the series, Describing Characters, are on a separate page.
Miscellaneous Items
Claude Steiner’s 1969 fable ‘The Warm Fuzzy Tale’
Text (PDF): https://reenchantements.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/warm-fuzzy-tale.pdf
Audio narrated by Rosalind Sharples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4JC9ExAVSE
Sight & Colour
Kassia St. Clair’s book The Secret Lives of Color (Penguin Books, 2017) offers a fascinating insight into the ‘meanings’ of colours. The publisher has some additional resources online:
http://ebookassets.penguinrandomhouse.com/ebookassets/features/secretlivesofcolor/Color_Index.pdf
Goethe’s Theory of Colours is available online in several places:
https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Goethe_Theory_of_Colours.pdf
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/50572/50572-h/50572-h.htm
https://archive.org/details/goethestheoryco01goetgoog/mode/2up
Albert H. Munsell’s A Color Notation is also available online:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/26054/26054-h/26054-h.htm
George Field’s Chromatography, or, A Treatise on Colours and Pigments : and of Their Powers in Painting, &c. (1835)
https://archive.org/details/gri_c00033125008687523
An alternative version on the Project Gutenberg site:https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20915
And one on Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Chromatography_Or_A_Treatise_on_Colours.html?id=PDMAAAAAQAAJ
Frédéric Baron de Portal’s An Essay on Symbolic Colours (1845) is available online here:
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/An_Essay_on_Symbolic_Colours.html?id=qkQ-AAAAYAAJ
and here
http://library.pyramidal-foundational-information.com/books//Symbolic%20Colors.pdf
Abraham Gottlob Werner’s ‘nomenclature of colours,’ was originally published in 1814, wth a second, updated edition by Patrick Syme in 1821. Its full title is Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours: with Additions, arranged so as to render it highly useful to the arts and sciences, particularly zoology, botany, chemistry, mineralogy, and morbid anatomy: annexed to which are examples selected from
well-known objects in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms.
A scan of the book can be found online here: https://archive.org/details/gri_c00033125012743312/page/n1/mode/2up
Nicholas Rougeux has created a webpage devoted to the book, where he reproduces each colour, gives its name and then an animal, vegetable, and mineral associated with it, and the colours that go into making it. Find it at www.c82.net/werner/
Ellen Conroy McCaffery – The Symbolism of Colour. William Rider & Son (1921) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76422
Wikipedia’s ‘List of Light Sources‘
COLOUR WHEELS
Wikipedia has an article that includes several examples of colour wheels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_wheel
COLOUR NAMES
Here is an example of the HTML colour codes with their names and samples. As I say in the book, only use colour names that your reader is likely to be able to imagine.
Colour Names at the HTML Color Codes website: https://htmlcolorcodes.com/color-names/
Wikipedia has a ‘Web Colors‘ article that shows the names alongside samples of the colours.
Wikipedia also has a ‘List of Colors by Shade‘
‘List of RAL Colors’ on Wikipedia with samples and colour names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_RAL_colours
Author and illustrator Ingrid Sundberg has shared a ‘Color Thesaurus’ that includes examples of different hues, tints,
and shades along with appropriate names. Find it here:
https://ingridsnotes.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/the-color-thesaurus/
Steve Chrisomalis (aka Forthright) has an A-Z list of more obscure colour names on his website, The Phrontistery – check out the site to see what that word means. The list is here: phrontistery.info/colours.html
If you are looking for colours of horses, the Wikipedia article ‘Equine Coat Color‘ is a good starting place. Be aware that some of the colours listed are used in the USA only: if you’re writing a story set in Britain, check out something like Martha Terry’s ‘Colour Me Happy: The Full Palette of Horse Coat Colours’ for the Horse & Hound website: https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/features/horse-colours-from-bay-to-cremello-784947
Smell & Scents
Here’s a link to the Wine Aroma Wheel mentioned in the book. A Google search for ‘Wine Aroma Wheel’ will get you other examples. www.winearomawheel.com
There is a nice example of a ‘Fragrance Circle’ from 1911 here on the Cabinet (magazine) website – click on the image to enlarge it: https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/32/jasper_wagner.php
Eugène Rimmel – The Book of Perfumes. Chapman & Hall (1867) on Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Book_of_Perfumes.html?id=-mfmbo_5UtcC
There is a simple Fragrance Wheel and a variety of lists of fragrances in the Wikipedia article ‘Fragrance Wheel‘ and a Google search for ‘fragrance wheel’ will get you more modern examples.
Hearing & Sound
Julian Treasure: The 4 Ways Sound Affects Us (6 mins) (2009) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRepnhXq33s
Richard Nordquist – ‘Sound Symbolism in English: Definition and Examples’ on the Thought Co. website:
https://www.thoughtco.com/sound-symbolism-words-1692114
Sound Ideas is a professional sound recording studio in Toronto, Canada. They have posted many videos on how they record sound effects. I love this stuff! https://www.sound-ideas.com/Page/how-we-make-sound-effects
Big Finish is a British audiobook producer specialising in science fiction shows such as Doctor Who. A great source of modern audio drama: www.BigFinish.com
You can find lots of old radio dramas archived online. Here are links to a couple of places to get you started:
https://archive.org/details/oldtimeradio
https://www.oldradioworld.com/
SOUND WHEEL
The paper ‘Chatty and Maps: Constructing Sound Maps of Urban Areas from Social Media Data,’ Royal Society Open Science (1st March 2016) by Luca Maria Aiello et al., includes an ‘urban sound taxonomy’ – a ‘sound wheel’ showing the kinds of sounds that might be heard in an urban environment: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.150690
Taste
Wikipedia has a list of ‘Wine Tasting Descriptors‘, some of which might be useful in describing other kinds of tastes. The wheel shown in the article is labelled in French, but there are several English versions online, including a good one at: https://shop.winefolly.com/en-gb/collections/wine-accessories/products/wine-aromas-chart
Touch & Texture
Wikipedia’s ‘List of Textile Fibres’ includes the characteristics for a long list of materials
Mouthfeel
A Google search for ‘mouthfeel wheel’ will get you several examples; the link below is for the one I found when I was researching the book:
Richard Gawel, A. Oberholster & Leigh Francis – ‘A “Mouthfeel Wheel”: Terminology for Communicating the Mouth-Feel Characteristics of Red Wine’ on the Make Wine website – the wheel is included at the end of the document: https://www.makewine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Mouth-Feel-Wheel.pdf
Symbolism
John Fraim’s book Symbolism of Place: The Hidden Context of Communication (full text) at the Symbolism.org website: http://www.symbolism.org/writing/books/sp/home.html
Ken Severson, ‘What is Symbolism? Definition & Examples’ on the StudioBinder website:
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-symbolism-definition/
Using Symbolism in Your Writing – Reedsy Channel
Justin Cash, ‘Powerful Symbols – 1,000 Objects and Their Meanings’ is a huge list of objects and their possible symbolic meanings on The Drama Teacher website:
https://thedramateacher.com/objects-as-symbols-in-performance/
An article by Ken Miyamoto on the ScreenCraft website, ‘What is Symbolism and How Do You Use It In Your Writing’ https://screencraft.org/blog/what-is-symbolism-and-how-do-you-use-it-in-your-writing/
A second Ken Miyamoto article ‘100 Symbolism Prompts That Add Depth to Your Screenplay’ on the ScreenCraft website: https://screencraft.org/blog/100-symbolism-prompts-that-add-depth-to-your-screenplay/
Andrew E. Larsen, in one of his ‘An Historian Goes to the Movies’ blog posts, discusses the use of the sword as a symbol, ‘Braveheart: When is a Sword Not a Sword?’
https://aelarsen.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/braveheart-when-is-a-sword-not-a-sword/
An article by John Fraim on the Script (magazine) website, ‘Script Symbology: Applying Symbols and Symbolism to Screenplays’
https://scriptmag.com/features/script-symbology-applying-symbols-and-symbolism-screenplays
’10 Brilliant Symbolism Examples: Symbolism in Screenwriting’ on the Industrial Scripts website:
https://industrialscripts.com/symbolism-examples/
Deafness
Deaf Movie Database (DMDb) deafmovie.org
Wikipedia’s ‘List of Films Featuring the Deaf and Hard of Hearing’ and ‘List of Deaf Films’.
‘Books About Deafness or with Deaf Characters’ on the Perkins School for the Blind website: perkins.org/books-about-deafness-or-with-deaf-characters/
‘14 Fantastic Books for Deaf Awareness Week – Thought-provoking Non-fiction, and Fabulous Fiction That’ll Thrill You, Chill You, and Stir Your Soul’ – by Joanne Owen, 26th April 2023 | Updated: 7th May 2025: https://www.lovereading.co.uk/blog/14-fantastic-books-for-deaf-awareness-week-thought-provoking-non-fiction-and-fabulous-fiction-that-ll-thrill-you-chill-you-and-stir-your-soul-8750
Writing Deaf Characters
Novelist T. Frohock describes herself as ‘a real-life cyborg’ because she has a cochlear implant. On her blog, she has written three posts about ‘Writing Deaf Characters’. You can find the first one here: www.tfrohock.com/blog/2016/9/12/writing-deaf-characters
Melanie Ashford wrote ‘How to Write Deaf or Hard of Hearing Characters’ on the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) website: www.sfwa.org/2021/03/23/how-to-write-deaf-or-hard-of-hearing-characters/
Blindness
Elsa Sjunneson Henry wrote ‘So, You Wanna Write a Blind Character?’ for Chuck Wendig’s website:
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2016/04/20/elsa-henry-so-you-wanna-write-a-blind-character/
Mimzy Reiner has written ‘Writing a Blind or Visually Impaired Character’ for her Late Night Writing Advice blog: https://mimzy-writing-online.tumblr.com/post/185122795699/writing-a-blind-or-visually-impaired-character
Steff Green wrote the article ‘Blind Characters: A Process Of Awareness’ for Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature, and it is available online here:
https://wordgathering.syr.edu/past_issues/issue9/essays/green.html
Aphantasia
Mark Lawrence — ‘I Have No Mind’s Eye: What is it Like Being an Author with Aphantasia?’ for The Guardian newspaper in 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/01/being-an-author-with-aphantasia-mark-lawrence
Aphantasia and Your Reading Experience – Gina Lucia Reads:
Rosina Williams – ‘Impact of Aphantasia on the Reading Experience.’ Aphantasia.com [website], 6th April 2023: https://aphantasia.com/article/science/reading-experience/?srsltid=AfmBOooEbq3-di_Rf7kCWOwEhwY1wKVVl6u6DnCcFP45ui7Z4BwzpQ0d
A radio programme ‘Aphantasia: When the Mental Image is Missing,’ from Quirks and Quarks, broadcast by CBC Radio (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/quirks-quarks-for-jun-25-2016-1.3645555/aphantasia-when-the-mental-image-is-missing-1.3651056
Jae – ‘Being a Writer When You Have Aphantasia.’ Jae Fiction [website], 22nd September 2022:
Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire: https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq/
Read more about the origins of the questionnaire here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vividness_of_Visual_Imagery_Questionnaire
PAUL TOMLINSON 