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Stories With Tastes, Smells, Sights, Sounds, And Touchy-feely Things
Author: Arline Chandler
Who among us does not have certain sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures that awaken memories and images? The almond aroma of Jergens hand lotion calls to my mind evenings in my grandmother’s living room, my parents leaning into the console radio for the click, click, click of Walter Winchell’s news. I dreaded those evenings because the adults shushed me so they could hear about World War II.
Who smells buttered popcorn popping and does not think “movies?” Leather calls to mind saddles, bridles, horses, and cowboy boots. Fresh baking bread might make me think of my husband’s childhood home, but today, young people might think “pizza!” Suntan lotion brings memories of boating on a clear, swift-moving river. The chiming clock on our courthouse tells me I’m home. Crisp clean sheets, warm water in a shower, a baby’s laugh, and my dog’s relaxing groans at nighttime are sounds that evoke contentment.
Incorporating these sights, sounds, textures, and smells into our stories also stir up images in our readers. In her book, Writer’s Guide to Crafting Stories for Children, Nancy Lamb says, “Think of your book as a living organic entity. It breathes, it smells, it senses. It touches and tastes. Your job is to feed these senses to keep them alive amidst the challenge and conflict and turmoil your hero must confront.”
Have your character wake up to the sounds and smells of the household—bacon sizzling, coffee perking, biscuits baking in the oven. Or perhaps, your hero opens his eyes in a slum. Let him see dingy curtains, a cockroach skittering across a cold, bare floor. He might hear the drip from a leaky faucet and neighbors arguing in the next apartment. Whatever your setting and story, include sensory details.
Author and illustrator, Melanie Greenberg, says: “From my first book, At the Beach, I wrote the sentence: ‘Seashells whisper sounds of waves breaking on land far away.’ The "S" sounds conjure up the sound of the seashell when put to one's ear. A wave breaking can be heard in the sentence structure.”
Since Greenberg illustrates her books, she completes a visual image with her own pictures. From her book, Mermaids on Parade, she wrote: "There are rows and rows of onlookers along the boardwalk. Clap! Clap! Clap! They cheer and applaud, then click their cameras. Snap! Snap! Snap!"
Greenberg goes on to say, “Try to find the word that resonates and brings an emotional memory to the surface. I use simple evocative language with colors, emotions, and the five senses.”
In her book, Wild Words: How To Tame Them To Tell Stories, Sandy Asher suggests an exercise for tuning into your five senses. Find a place, indoors or out, where you can be undisturbed for five minutes. Allowing one minute for each sense, concentrate totally. Do not take notes—yet. Notice what you see, up and down and all around. Next, what you hear. Follow this exercise through all five senses. After five minutes, write down what you remember. You may notice more in those five short minutes than you previously did in a whole day.
Asher suggests that each time you visit a new place, take five minutes to observe it, one sense at a time. Write down your observations. Once you’ve gotten into the habit of paying attention to your senses, try incorporating that information into a character. This simple exercise can change your writing.
In my story, The Secrets of Weird Wanda, I wrote “…the shutters slam and the wind makes a sound like a train whistling through the attic” to describe the house my heroine’s neighbors moves into. The phrase “stepping across the brown stubble of grass and weeds surrounding the weather-scarred house” conveys texture.
“…the spooky house with its sagging roof and peeling gray paint” gives a visual picture, as well as suggests texture. My heroine dislikes the “gossipy whispering” that she overhears. She and her brother observed “a flash of red light behind the living room’s dirt-spattered window,” which presents another visual image of their neighbor’s home.
Barbie arranged “freshly baked chocolate chip cookies on a blue china plate.” “The smell of warm cookies whetted Barbie’s appetite for cold milk,” a sentence illustrating how an aroma or image can conjure up a memory or a desire.
Words that convey a sense of smell, sound, sight, taste, and touch add to the richness of a text. Use them!
This column first appeared on DM in 2009, but we think you'll agree that it still has some good information!
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