Creating the world and reader identification.

Work with facts, not conclusions. Focus on your sensory details.

Run down a list of your senses. What to you hear, see, taste, feel, smell?

Write those facts, not the conclusions from them. And oh, if you’ve
given your character a few extra senses, either because it’s an alien or a
psychic, run through those, too.

You’ve seen this at work a thousand times, even if you didn’t realize it.

Take old Western movies, for instance. How do you tell the bad guys
from the good guys?

Classic: the good guys wear white hats. They have lighter-colored horses.
Modernly, they don’t smoke (unless you’re doing some sort of anti-hero
thing, maybe.)

Or take the Vulcans. When they place their fingertips on your temples
and get that pained, constipated look on their faces, you know they’re
doing a mind meld, right? They don’t say, “I’m in your mind.” They just
grimace.

That’s the way senses work. Ours and the Vulcan ones.