March 18, 2022

Back when I was in college, I had a professor who told us that if we could use the sense of smell in our prose descriptions, we would elevate our writing to the next level. I, being the overachieving perfectionist that I was (still am), immediately set about doing so in my submissions for the class. But I treated it as an assignment to get a little bump in my feedback and not a technique to practice and implement in my creative work. Smells were nice, but they weren’t strictly necessary to create a setting, I thought.

I was wrong.

We abled writers tend to rely very heavily on sight and sound to carry the weight of a scene in our work. I did, too. Most of what I read focused on sight and sound, so clearly the lack of the other senses wasn’t a deal breaker to publishers. What was the big deal?

Aside from being wildly ableist (a discussion for another day), relying solely or even too heavily on sight and sound details automatically makes for flat writing. We perceive the world through five senses, so to create an accurate picture within our writing, we should use all five senses. Can we paint a picture with just one or two senses? Yes, obviously. But the more senses we include, the more dynamic the picture and the more accessible that picture will be to differently abled audiences. And I have found one of the best senses to include to help create that more universal appeal is the sense of smell.

Very recently, I’ve started adding smells to my prose. I was inspired to do so from numerous sources. I had just gotten a new perfume online, the first time I had ever bought perfume based on scent description and not firsthand experience (Book Witch—Sucreabeille. Love it). I had also attended the virtual panel at World Con for Worldbuilding Through Food, and the panelists’ discussion really got my mouth watering. And finally, I aggressively binged Netflix’s Daredevil where Matt Murdock focuses on his heightened senses to fight crime and look hot. All of these different sources entered my life and shifted my focus onto senses other than sight or sound. As with anything new entering my life, I decided to explore it through writing.

I created a character whose job was to make incense and candles. I researched different scents, combinations of scents, and set about writing a story where smells featured quite prominently. To my great surprise, the experience of writing this story felt so much deeper and richer than my other writing projects. I felt more immersed in my story than ever before, and I never struggled to start up a writing session. 

Even my technical skills improved. The more I focused on smell, the more the other four sensory descriptions seemed to naturally fall into place. My characters and their backstories and motivations and emotions seemed to write themselves. Once I knew a character smelled like fish and jasmine, I knew she was a fiercely determined woman who took pride in her work and wanted to use her skills to help others. Another character kept dried flowers in her room, and this, combined with the hot climate, left her in a cloud of fermented florals that told me she was hardworking and beautiful and intelligent, a one of a kind artisan. The smell of a storm added tension to a scene where there wasn’t any before. Discussions over dinner were more personal when they included food aromas between dialogue.

I was blown away. My college professor was right: every time I added a scent to my writing, the prose was indeed elevated to the next level.

Making this change in my prose hasn’t been easy. My Google history is riddled with searches reading “What does X smell like.” I’ve sniffed quite a few scented candles, and I’ve sat with my eyes closed in total silence to try and block out the pervasive sight and sound senses that my abled and therefore biased body and mind are so desperate to lean on. It takes conscious effort to include smells, and more than a few extra editing passes. But it has been worth it for my own enjoyment in the writing process, and, I hope, in my reader’s ability to fully and easily engage with my stories.

I encourage you to give writing with your nose a try. Or write with your tongue and feature tastes in your stories. Or touch. Or keep using sight and sound, but see if you can get away from using them as a crutch. Flip flop senses around. What does the color red sound like? How would a boom of thunder taste? Can you smell slippery smooth silk?

Human beings have incredible perception powers at our disposal. Tap into that power with your writing and see what magic happens.