Edith/Maddie here, writing from north of Boston and loving the smells and tastes of summer.
This week let’s address the five senses in our writing. Wickeds, how do you work sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste into your writing? Do you try to include all five in each scene? Are there some you find easier to write than others? Examples would be great.
Julie: Jess Lourey did a great editing workshop for Sisters in Crime. She talks about levels of editing in the final polish, and how important it is to heighten one or two senses in a scene. For instance, there’s a baking scene in Lilly’s kitchen. What does the fruit they’re cutting up feel like? What do the scones smell like? What does the tea taste like? You don’t have to hit the reader over the head with poetic prose, but ground them in the scene.
Liz: I love this question and it’s one I’ve been trying to thing more about as I’m writing. I tend to skip past a lot of that stuff, especially in the first draft, so now I’m making more of an effort to slow down and really see/feel/hear/smell along with the character. I just found a note in my phone, actually, about how to enhance a scene – it’s a note about what summer activities at a campground full of kids sound like, look like, taste like (what foods they’re eating, how it relates to summer) as well as the summer smells. It’s an interesting exercise to really put thought into.
Edith/Maddie: Like Liz, I often skip the senses in my fast first draft. I love the editing pass where I enrich each scene with the details of the world as they relate to the action or a particular character. I have a lot of cooking and eating in my stories, so smell and taste are easy to add. Depending on what’s happening, touch might be harder, but I always want to ground the reader in my character’s world.
Sherry: I don’t try to include all five in each scene. I think that might bog a manuscript down. And like others, I usually add the senses in after the first draft.
Jessie: Sherry, I agree! I try to have anything I write add value to the story above all else. I use any of the senses to that end. A romantic scene may include more touch or smell. One that involves creativity may demonstrate sight. A scene that deepens bonds between platonic characters often employs sound in the form of words shared to create a connection.
Barb: For me, the senses are often there in the first draft as I try to get the scene in my head onto the page. Except for the food scenes, where Bill usually hasn’t created the recipe yet and therefore we haven’t tasted the dish. Those sights, tastes, and smells I add in later. And, as I said in my post on Monday, the senses you use should depend on the emotion you are trying to evoke in the reader.
Readers: do you notice when an author includes the senses? Have you ever read too much of them?
The Wickeds 
Interesting topic!
I agree with Edith that books with cooking & eating scenes can be greatly enhanced with proper descriptors.
Leslie Karst’s Sally Solari culinary mysteries had each book focusing on a different sense (e.g. smell, sight, hearing, taste, touch).
LikeLike
I loved that about Leslie’s books, Grace.
LikeLike
Honestly to me it’s when you don’t notice the written senses that the story works so well. When worked in to where they are normal, make you feel like you are right there using your senses, then the author’s succeeded in telling a story exceptionally well. Can’t recall of any story with sensory overload though.
2clowns at arkansas dot net
LikeLike
We all strive for that unnoticeable storytelling!
LikeLike
Great descriptions absolutely enhance a story. I want to be able to taste that brownie the character is eating, see the town they love so much. But sometimes there needs to be a balance between giving the reader a good picture and leaving some to their imaginations. I once took a writing class where the instructor explained the difference between showing and telling. You can say a character has long hair, but it’s better to show it by saying they had to keep brushing their long hair out of the way. It made me think more about that kind of thing and I definitely notice when descriptions get clunky. I have read a couple books where it’s like a list- she wore blue jeans, red shirt, white shoes, had brown hair….. I tend to skip over passages like that.
LikeLike
We never want the senses or descriptions to get clunky. Everything should be in the service of the story.
LikeLike
Now I have a re-reading project for these days when it’s too hot to move…re-reading books looking for taste and smell. I’m thinking that including all the senses enhances a story, but that like other “fine details” in good writing, this inclusion is seamless…just part of the story. Smells, sounds, tastes, sights, touches altogether are needed to tell the tale, not to pause it.
LikeLike
Exactly, Elisabeth.
LikeLike
I agree with Kay, they work best when you don’t notice them.
LikeLike
Me three!
LikeLike
How interesting to read everyone’s take on including the 5 senses in your writing! I am a touchy-feely kinda guy, so I appreciate an author soaking the scene with feelings, tastes, smells and sounds. I don’t care for scenes that plunge into a sexual encounter. At that point, I stop reading and skip to when it is PG-3 again 🙂 Love all your cozies, dear fiends! You make my life more fun and rich with the educational elements I learn about thanks to your research! JOY! Luis at ole dot travel
LikeLike
We feel blessed to have your enthusiastic fanship, Luis!
LikeLike
What a thought-provoking discussion, ladies. I try to include the senses when I’m setting a scene. My goal is to help establish the scene’s mood. I’d like to think I do a reasonable job of it. I guess it’s the readers who have the final say!
LikeLike
For sure, JC.
LikeLike
If two characters are having a conversation in an office or interrogation room with no food or drink involved, I don’t need to have taste included in the scene. 🙂 Yes, I’m being funny, but you don’t need all five senses in every scene. But a good author will think through what should be included and what shouldn’t, and add them as appropriate. For most of the senses, it just takes a quick line or two, so it doesn’t need to slow down the action.
LikeLike
Exactly, Mark.
LikeLike
I’ve enjoyed thinking about this as I’ve read what everyone has written. One thing I’ve noticed is how often in mysteries, characters talk about walking into a room or up close to someone and “smelling fear.” I haven’t been in a situation where someone is frightened for his/her life, thank goodness, but I am not comfortable with this almost-cliché because I’m not convinced that we human beings can smell fear. Can dogs sense that someone is afraid of them? I think so, although I don’t have a dog. But people “smelling” fear? What do you think, Edith?
LikeLike
Kim, your comment about smelling fear reminds me of my pet peeve feelings about the (over)use of the phrase “the smile did not reach her eyes”. An unpleasant barrier in
telling the story.
LikeLike
Elisabeth, I’m guilty of that phrase in the past, but have stopped writing it. There are other ways of saying what a superficial smile might look like.
LikeLike
Wow, Kim. I’m not sure. I think people do give off scents of nerves, and maybe of fear. I’m not the best person to ask, I’m afraid.
LikeLike
I want enough of the “showing instead of telling” to be there so I experience the same thing. But I don’t want to be bombarded with any of it. I recently put down an otherwise adequate book because the author would describe every detail of every room even when it had nothing to do with the story. And another mostly decent culinary cozy turned me off because everything the protagonist ate or drank was described to death.
LikeLike
I hear you, Ginny. Lessons to all of us who write!
LikeLike