" The writer of fiction—and I include in this all the works of the imagination, poetry, plays, realistic novels, fantasy—may never tell; he must show, and show through the five senses. “Describe this room in which we’re sitting,” I say, “and make use of all five of your senses. Don’t tell us. Show us.” The beginning writer finds this difficult. I have to repeat and repeat: fiction is built upon the concrete. A news article is essentially transitory and may be built upon sand. The house of fiction must be built upon rock. Feel, smell, taste, hear, see: show it. Dante says: “You cannot understand what I write unless you understand it in a fourfold way: on the literal level, the moral level, the allegorical level, and the anagogical level. "

― Madeleine L'Engle , The Crosswicks Journals: A Circle of Quiet, The Summer of the Great-Grandmother, The Irrational Season, and Two-Part Invention