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Writing with Your Five Senses - 5 tips for writing with 5 senses
We all know the advice given to writers about using our five senses when writing. Engaging senses other than sight in our books brings the setting alive, allows us to see what’s important to our characters, and lets us get to know them through what they notice.
While what we see always seems to be the most important, there’s so much more to our interpretation of the world around us. Smells can trigger memories or cause a visceral reaction. Sounds, such as music, and evoke physical and emotional responses.
We filter the world through our senses, and our characters should do the same. Let’s look at how each sense can be used effectively in our writing.
Sight
What we see is important. But don’t mistake description of the character’s surroundings with actual “seeing.”
When a character enters a living room and just describes what they see in terms of the furniture for example—a couch, loveseat, coffee table, and a couple of lamps—that’s very different than what they really see…dust coating the coffee table in a formal living room, telling them that the owner of the home rarely uses this room or that they’ve been away for some time. Faux Egyptian artifacts lining bookshelves, alongside romance novels and Disney memorabilia, may paint a picture of someone with varying tastes, as well as, maybe, a sense of playfulness or a love of nostalgia.
What the character notices visually and what those items tell that character—and the reader—are much more important than just what you’d see on first glance around the room. Be intentional with what your viewpoint characters notice about their surroundings, other characters, the world, etc.
Sound
Sound is all around us all the time, but we tune a lot of it out. As with sight, what a character notices audibly tells us a lot about the character. Someone spending their first night in a big city apartment they just moved into is going to feel their senses bombarded with traffic, honking, sirens, etc. Whereas someone who’s lived in the city for years might find all that noise soothing, and if there was sudden silence where they were used to sound, that silence might feel terribly jarring, unsettling, or even ominous.
How a character feels about sound is important too. A character listening to classical music might feel soaring power and strength in the sounds, or they might feel overwhelming sorrow, because the music reminds them of their late father, who played cello for a symphony. A character trying to sleep may be driven crazy by a dripping faucet or a ticking clock…or they may find the repetition calming. As with all senses, it’s not always about character observations. It’s also about the emotions those observations evoke in that character in particular.
Also consider using onomatopoeia—words that describe a sound, like plop, clink, bam, etc.—to describe sound in your writing. Really pay attention to the word, though, to be sure you’ve chosen the best one. For example, footsteps on a wooden floor won’t “clang,” though they might if the person is walking on a suspended steel grate walkway.
Touch
What we feel tactilely when we touch something, and what we feel emotionally as we touch it, tells a lot about a character. Touch can be rough, sensual, meaningful. A child might stimulate themselves by stroking a blanket or rubbing a silky tag between their fingertips. A person locked in a dark closet by a bad guy may use their sense of touch to search for something to use to escape. What they feel through their fingertips is all they have to go by, though they may also smell the mustiness of things that have been stored in the closet for years or smell the cedar lining the closet walls.
Historical romance novelists can turn the mere act of characters touching hands—skin to skin—for the first time into an erotic experience, since women were often required to wear gloves whenever outside their homes.
Remember, too, that when one or more senses are blocked, other senses become more heightened. In the dark of the closet, the character can’t see anything. So, the other senses of smell, hearing, and, potentially, touch (unless they are bound in some way), are going to be stronger. Use only what is available to the character at any moment in order to maintain their point of view and really draw readers into the scene with the character.
Taste
Think about a lemon. Imagine placing a slice of lemon in your mouth, tasting it. Have your cheeks puckered yet? Have you started salivating? And I didn’t do anything but ask you to imagine it and you had an automatic reaction.
Tastes can bring back memories, from holidays, family gatherings, horrible foods you were forced to eat as a child. Using food in writing can tell us a lot about characters as they are now, and also as they were in the past.
Consider, too, that taste isn’t always about food. When characters kiss, they may taste the chocolate just eaten by their partner, or the cigarette they snuck a short time ago. They may also come across an odor so strong they taste it, like ammonia or vinegar. Look for ways to incorporate taste into your writing from time to time.
Smell
Scent is said to be one of the most powerful triggers of emotions and memory. The aroma of baked goods, cinnamon, spices, and other warming scents, like baking bread or cookies, are said to help entice home buyers to buy a home. We remember the smell of a loved one’s perfume or cologne, maybe even years and years after they are gone.
In writing, smell may be an often-neglected sense, but it can be used amazingly effectively, triggering memories for a character (their mother’s patchouli fragrance), alerting them to danger (smelling smoke or chemicals), or to show characterization (a baker might always smell vaguely of yeast or cinnamon).
Remember, too, that smell and taste are closely connected. Ever had a bad cold, to the point your sense of smell disappeared, only to find you also can’t taste anything? Using scent in conjunction with foods your characters come across can create a rich reader experience.
Combining All the Senses
Used in combination, senses can make a reader feel like they are there with the character. But don’t try to use all senses all at once or even every time you describe something. For example, when describing the ocean through a character’s eyes, you probably don’t need to mention taste, because they aren’t likely drinking the salt water. But there is plenty to see, hear, smell, and even touch at the beach.
Choose the strongest sense or senses for that particular character at that particular time. Refrain from writing lists of description by sense for every scene. Instead, choose the most important, or those that relay information the reader needs to know. If there’s not a particular reason for a smell in someone’s living room, then skip it. But if the character walks in the room and smells the overpowering smell of incense, or a dirty cat box, and it’s important, use it, layering it in with other senses to create the setting and tell the reader something about the area the character has just entered.
What your character notices tells us a lot about them. How can you use their senses to show us something unusual about them? Do they always pick out music being played when they go places, even if others don’t notice it? Are they very tactile, running their hands along items, noting the textures of things other characters ignore?
Careful and intentional use of the five senses in your writing can elicit emotions, not only in your characters, but in your readers, as well as ensuring that your readers are firmly entrenched in the scenes, right along with your characters.
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