Paul Whybrow
Full Member
We've previously touched on the importance of using all of the senses in creating our stories, to add to the verisimilitude of what we're describing. For example, by involving the reader in how a scene smells we tap into their reactions to that particular odour, placing them right there. It's said that smell is the most evocative of the senses, and it's also the most difficult to describe. Having smells impregnated into the page for a scratch and sniff experience would be useful, for those lacking imagination or a scent memory.
One of the world's most famous novels hinges on a sense memory—indeed, it's one of the few things most readers know about Proust's Remembrance of Things Past ( À la recherche du temps perdu) whose 1,267,029 word count is intimidating—that the whole story is prompted from remembering the taste of eating a madeleine cake dipped in tea.
In writing my last Cornish Detective novel, the climax involved a chase scene through a 18th-century smugglers' tunnel from beneath the suspects' house to the beach. The baddies were known for setting booby-traps, so my protagonist detective was taking his time to negotiate the narrow and low subterranean passage. Afraid to turn his torch on, for fear of being shot, he (and I) had to rely on his other senses to decide what was happening. These included the increasingly strong smell of the sea, the feel of the rough granite walls, a foul stench and acrid taste in his throat as he crushed hordes of cockroaches beneath his feet and trying to interpret the strange shifting sounds his quarry made.
Using more of the senses than just the primary one of sight adds impact. Seeing an angry lion roar would be terrifying, as would the sound, but what if your protagonist was close enough to the beast to feel the roar as vibration on their skin, as their hair stood on end, and they smelled the meaty breath of the hungry predator?
Sometimes, when editing, backloading a sentence to include other senses can add power to your narrative.
Have you created any strange sensations for your characters?
One of the world's most famous novels hinges on a sense memory—indeed, it's one of the few things most readers know about Proust's Remembrance of Things Past ( À la recherche du temps perdu) whose 1,267,029 word count is intimidating—that the whole story is prompted from remembering the taste of eating a madeleine cake dipped in tea.
In writing my last Cornish Detective novel, the climax involved a chase scene through a 18th-century smugglers' tunnel from beneath the suspects' house to the beach. The baddies were known for setting booby-traps, so my protagonist detective was taking his time to negotiate the narrow and low subterranean passage. Afraid to turn his torch on, for fear of being shot, he (and I) had to rely on his other senses to decide what was happening. These included the increasingly strong smell of the sea, the feel of the rough granite walls, a foul stench and acrid taste in his throat as he crushed hordes of cockroaches beneath his feet and trying to interpret the strange shifting sounds his quarry made.
Using more of the senses than just the primary one of sight adds impact. Seeing an angry lion roar would be terrifying, as would the sound, but what if your protagonist was close enough to the beast to feel the roar as vibration on their skin, as their hair stood on end, and they smelled the meaty breath of the hungry predator?
Sometimes, when editing, backloading a sentence to include other senses can add power to your narrative.
Have you created any strange sensations for your characters?
