Coming to our (characters') senses

I’ve been working on preparation for my NaNoWriMo project, which will delve into the history of an old house; working on the scene where my main character visits this ancient, uninhabited building for the first time. As I write her experience, I’m finding it helpful to use all five of her senses.

NaNoWriMo’s edit-free practise not withstanding (and more of that next month, unless someone here beats me to it 😊), there’s a careful balance to be met when describing how a character experiences their surroundings. I once read about a heroine who, ‘felt the softness of the goose-down pillow envelop her head and shoulders, like a marshmallow being dipped into melted chocolate.’  I couldn’t work out if that sounded like a yummy snack, or a sticky mess.

In this age of skim-reading, any superfluous descriptions will likely be glossed over. It’s a real skill creating descriptions that draw the reader in, and keep them! If we describe the feeling of every individual grain of sand on her bare feet, we may stall the pace of telling why she was on the beach in the first place. The action is lost, and possibly the reader.

Another pitfall can be the cliché. Some writers use clichés ‘til the cows come home... If your character is unique, your writing will be too. Ask your character how they experience their world, and don’t let them fall into a static mould. Push yourself out of your comfort zone by pushing your character out of theirs. Then comb your prose for any familiar phrase. Eyes like pools of water, baby-soft skin, flowing locks of hair, they all have to go.

Using the senses can add great strength and beauty to prose. As I’ve said on this blog before, work needs to be done in the writing, so that there is ease in the reading. 

I found making a chart helps. Before writing the scene, I ask,

Where are they?
Why are they there?
What type of experience is it? Happy/sad/scary etc
What can they
     See
     Hear
     Smell
     Feel
     Taste
     Is there a 6^th sense?   

Using the senses can reveal character traits, evoke memories, change moods and paint pictures. They are powerful tools if we use them well.

Here’s an opportunity to try it out if you'd like to. Leave a comment below, describing the cake in the photo above.

Annmarie Miles is from Dublin, Ireland. 

She lives with her husband Richard who is a pastor in the Eastern Valley of Gwent, in South Wales. She writes short stories, magazine articles, devotional pieces for Christian radio, and blogs about her faith at www.auntyamo.com Her first collection of short stories published in 2013, is called 'The Long & The Short of it' She is working on a second collection due for publication in 2018, and a non-fiction book about being an overweight Christian called, 'Have mercy on me O Lord, a slimmer.'