The Five Senses- how using them enhances your writing.
Last night the critique group met and it was a success. We
had a few new writers, who decided to take the bold move to improve their
writing beyond their family’s platitudes, taking those first tentative steps
where others can read and critique their works.
It was a mixed bag as it always it, writers of every level,
but all of them writers eager to develop their skill and learn the craft of
writing.
The one thing I noticed that the three works all shared
beyond the usual structural mistakes, is the lack of utilizing the five senses.
All three had elements where the characters senses could have been employed to enhance
the story. Which made me think of how often the five sense are often ignored or
given short shrift in written works.
Every one of the stories only utilized the sense of sight, understand
that is not wrong. But it can become tedious. Each of us, in our lives don’t
only utilize our sight. Hearing, smell, touch and taste are things we rely upon
to enhance our experiences as we putter through the day doing whatever we do. Why shouldn’t the characters in our stories
also use their senses?
Using the senses in your writing doesn’t take any more time,
but the rewards of adding depth to your writing is priceless to your reader.
Sight is probably the most important sense in creative
writing. We paint pictures and craft scenes with our words. We create images
that the reader sees along with our characters. In order to do this effectively
we have to use the most powerful words we can and cut the needless words that
do nothing more than bog down or confuse the reader. Vivid pictures contain
enough detail to impart what the character sees so that the reader can visualize
it, but no so much that they get lost in the minutiae. That is where proper
word choice comes in to play. There is a world of difference between, “The
cellar door lay open, revealing the darkness below where the fuse box was.” And
“The cellar door opened like a giant maw, the ready to swallow any who entered;
somewhere in the malignant dark was the fuse box.”
Smell is the sense that has a way of transporting people to
other times and places. In our lives we associate smells with memories. Fresh
baked cookies can bring us back to when we were kids. The smell of wood burning
can remind us of cold winter nights in front of the fire place. It can also
bring back horrid memories. Anyone who has gotten sick from too much tequila or
jagermiester will tell you they can’t stand the smell and it makes them queasy
to their stomach. Smell used in our writing can be used in a variety of ways.
To indicate danger, foreshadowing or to be used as a method for flashbacks.
Sound is really underutilized. Many times our characters are
traversing through crowded areas, where ambient noise can add to the story. In
a thriller, the sound of footsteps behind our character as they flee down an
alleyway creates immediate tension. The sounds of the sea lapping against the
shore, the muffled conversations of passersby, when used briefly to enhance a
scene rewards the reader and creates a more vivid world.
Taste is a difficulty one because the only time you will use
it is when your character actively uses their tongues. Depending the on the
genre you write in, that could be sparse to…well you know. However that doesn’t mean we cannot use it to
help enhance our story. Used in conjunction with smell, our character who
smells the fresh baked cookies, can taste the warm, gooey chocolate chips and
hint of cinnamon that Nana’s cookies had. The little girl that your protagonist
passes by is licking her lollipop nosily, her purple tongue darting out and
sticking monetarily before vanishing again. You don’t need to describe the
taste but can imply it and the reader will understand and can identify with a
flavor even if not explicitly mentioned. Using taste is difficult because it is very
situational, but when it can be employed, it should be.
Touch. Our tactile sense is greatly under used in writing. I
cannot tell you how many times I have read a sentence where the hero has
grabbed the mystical doodad and…we don’t get anything telling us how it felt. When
you tap the keys on your keyboard they have a distinct sensation. Some keys are
metallic others have the plastic feel. Your clothes feel different; rub your
hand across cotton then against wool. Two very different feels and sensations
each can be used to evoke different moods in the scene. I recently read a work for a friend where the
character was “feeling” their way through a tunnel. Yet there was no mention of
how the walls felt, or for the smell or any other sense except sight. When I
asked him about this he said, “I never thought about it.”
Creating a vivid reality for the reader is what makes your
writing memorable and gets books sold. We have five senses, your characters
have those same senses, they should be using them to help propel the story and
evoke sensations that the reader can identify with. We paint with words, but unlike two-dimensional
paintings where only sight can evoke a sensation, we can involve all the senses
of our characters and thus our readers. These are powerful tools that as writers
you cannot ignore.
