How to Make Your Novel Scratch and Sniff
Do you want your reader to feel like they’re part of your world? Do you want your setting to stick with them long after they’ve closed your book?
One of the best ways to bring your fictional world to life is to use all five senses. Because each sense comes with its own unique strengths and challenges, today I’m starting into a new series to give smell, taste, touch, sight, and sound their due.
The trick with smells is that if you include too many you can burn your reader out the way you deaden your nose if you smell every candle in the Yankee Candle store. (Not that I’m admitting to having done that, but in case you were wondering, my favorite is the Buttercream.)
Three techniques can help you make the most of the smells you choose.
Connect the Smell to an Emotion
Smell can be one of the most powerful senses in your fiction because of its ability to evoke emotions. You probably associate certain smells with memories, people, or places. I hate the way the dentist office smells like burning hair. The smell comes from the singed protein of teeth being drilled, and I associate that smell with pain. If I’m stressed, the warm scent of a clean dog will calm me down because I associate it with the comfort I find in my Great Dane when I throw my arms around her after a hard day.
Think about your own life and what smells evoke memories and emotions. Why do they have that effect on you? You don’t need to duplicate that precise smell in your fiction (you should find one that belongs organically to your character), but by paying attention to how smells intertwine throughout your life, you can learn how to build them into your stories.
If you’re struggling with how to naturally slide in necessary backstory, smell can be your saving grace. As Roni Loren recently pointed out in her post on How to Dish Out Backstory in Digestible Bites, something needs to trigger a memory in order to introduce backstory. Because of how memories cling to scents, smells work as a perfect trigger.
Choose One “Showpiece” Scent
In Ted Dekker’s The Boneman’s Daughter, the serial killer is addicted to Noxzema. I think about it every time I wash my face. That’s the staying power of giving a single scent a starring role.
This isn’t just for fiction writers. For non-fiction writers, you can create the same lasting memory by finding the one key smell to grab your readers. It could be the difference between a forgettable article or chapter in your book and motivating your readers to act. Are you writing a parenting book? What smell defines motherhood for you? How did that smell grow and change with your child? Differ between sickness and health?
Even though you’ll have other scents in your book, weaving one key smell throughout, changing it, playing off of it in moments of tension, ties your entire story together and imprints it on your reader’s mind. The next time they smell that scent in the world, they’ll think of your book.
Contrast a Good Smell with a Bad One
Choosing two antagonistic scents can be done simply to make both smells stand out more than they would on their own, complement a theme, or subtly support what’s happening inside your character.
In my co-written historical fantasy, our main male character is torn between the desire to sleep with his new female slave and the desire to obey his new God who forbids it. He commands her to strip off her tunic, and when she does, the scent of sweat and cypress invades his nostrils. The opposing scents mirror the struggle between his opposing desires.
In The Hunger Games trilogy, President Snow smells like blood and roses. He uses the roses to cover up the fact that his breath reeks of blood, and this becomes a metaphor in a way for how the beauty and glitz of the capital tries to disguise the repulsiveness of the country’s situation. Suzanne Collins could have just had him smell like blood, but the contrast with something as beautiful and symbolic as roses made the smell of blood that much more grotesque. And Katniss is never able to think about roses the same way again.
What smell brings back a strong emotion for you, either good or bad?
Interested in more ways to improve your writing? Grammar for Fiction Writers is now available from Amazon, Kobo, or Smashwords. (You might also be interested in checking out Showing and Telling in Fiction
or Dialogue: A Busy Writer’s Guide
.)
All three books are available in print and ebook forms.
Be sure to sign up to receive email updates so that you don’t miss the remaining four senses.
May 02, 2012 @ 08:39:31
informative post Marcy. and good ideas.
May 02, 2012 @ 09:20:07
Thank you 🙂
May 02, 2012 @ 08:41:26
Fantastic post Marcy. Loved the tip on contrasting a good smell with a bad one. That totally LEPT off the post to me.
May 02, 2012 @ 09:21:39
I’m glad it helped. That’s one of my favorite things to do with descriptions.
May 02, 2012 @ 09:53:53
Great post. I love using the five senses – they are a great way for readers in visualize the setting. Contrasting a good smell with a bad is a great idea, too. Thanks, Marcy!
May 02, 2012 @ 14:27:06
You’re welcome. I’m really looking forward to when your book comes out.
May 02, 2012 @ 10:14:05
Love this post! So glad you’re doing a series on the senses.
May 02, 2012 @ 14:27:31
Thanks! I’ve had a lot of fun brainstorming for this series, so I hope I can bring out something new with each scent.
May 02, 2012 @ 11:31:44
Excellent post, Marcy.
I’m filing it my folder–Exceptional Writing Tips.
Fresh brewed coffee evokes a precious memory I have of my Nana.
As the eldest of five, I couldn’t wait to escape my noisy house and spend the weekend with Nana. Her perked coffee would be waiting for me, wafting through her matchbox, attic apartment.
I’d dip her homemade “Pulla” (Finnish coffee bread) in my coffee that was loaded with sugar and milk. I can still taste the soggy sweet bread melting on my tongue.
Ah, thanks for bringing that memory to the surface.
Tracy
May 02, 2012 @ 17:01:02
Thank you for sharing such a lovely memory with us. As soon as you said “fresh brewed coffee,” I felt like I was standing beside you and sitting down for a snack. The scent that connects to memories of my childhood with my grandma (who I’m blessed to still have) is chicken soup. She made her own stock, so when I’d come to visit after school, I’d get a bowl of homemade chicken soup with big chunks of chicken and egg noodles she’d rolled herself.
May 02, 2012 @ 12:17:12
Great post, Marcy. I look forward to the rest of this series. Meanwhile, the scent of brewed Earl Grey tea calms me. Rosemary rubbed betweem my fingers sends me to a sunny hillside, and a sliced lemon brings back summer and lemonade.
May 02, 2012 @ 17:01:53
All those scents are wonderfully evocative (and you now have me craving fresh-squeezed lemonade).
May 02, 2012 @ 13:14:02
Good points, Marcy. I try very hard to evoke all of the senses in my writing, but I forget that it would be more meaningful if attached to an emotion. I like you examples here. I’ll watch for that a little more in my writing.
I tend to slip some scent passages in whenever my characters are entering a restaurant, a smoky bar, a pine forest, but it doesn’t always have to be associated with a physical place.
Thanks or the tidbits!
Patricia Rickrode
w/a Jansen Schmidt
May 02, 2012 @ 17:07:08
You point out a really good way to naturally introduce scent. When we enter a new location, scent is one of the first senses to kick in–sometimes even before our eyes have finished processing what we see.
May 02, 2012 @ 15:54:40
I missed lunch today, Marcy, so the only smells that come to me are the smell of the bakery that drifts down when you’re walking through the parking lot. Or when you drive by a steak house, the scent of grilled steak and spices.
Wonderful and informative post. Thanks!
May 02, 2012 @ 17:03:48
When you bike ride around my neighborhood around supper time in the summer, you can smell people grilling steaks and hamburgers, that combination of charcoal and roasting red meat. It makes my mouth water every time.
May 02, 2012 @ 16:01:34
Great post. I heard a country song today that speaks to you post. They chorus has the following line: That melody sounds like a memory.
Attaching a smell to memory is one of my favorite tricks. I should use it more. 😛
May 02, 2012 @ 17:04:12
We’ll have to keep an eye on each other in the next book…
May 02, 2012 @ 18:30:56
Alas, I have no sense of smell, which makes adding smells hard for me. I guess I will have to tap people in my circle for scents to add to my work. Perhaps I can even find a beta reader or two willing to specifically tackle the scent issue!
Thanks for the great post!
Kerry
May 02, 2012 @ 18:36:35
That does add a challenge, but I think you’re on the right track with asking friends (or other writers online) to help out. I think most people would be more than willing to help. Feel free to send me an email or a message on Facebook/Twitter is you’re stuck, and I’d be happy to contribute suggestions.
May 02, 2012 @ 18:48:53
Fascinating post and I’m really looking forward to reading more about the senses. I’m reading right now Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series and scent is used really well in those. Mercy can shift into a coyote and has a very keen nose. She uses her enchancted smell to sort out murders and to find people.
May 07, 2012 @ 23:15:57
I love the idea of using scent in that way. I’ll have to check out the books.
May 02, 2012 @ 21:42:42
Thank you Marcy for this post. I think you made a great point when you said that over use of a scent can deaden our nose. The use of all our senses helps us draw the picture of the scene and make it real in the mind. This is very helpful Marcy! 🙂
May 07, 2012 @ 23:17:57
Thanks 🙂 I’m glad it helped.
May 03, 2012 @ 04:12:37
Any author who can master scent has me hooked. That’s where the scene comes alive. I love the idea of a “signature scent.” Really useful, Marcy!
May 03, 2012 @ 09:25:49
Thanks 🙂 That idea actually came from watching one too many cooking competition shows where ever contestant is admonished about creating a signature dish 🙂
Top Picks Thursday 05-03-2012 « The Author Chronicles
May 03, 2012 @ 13:01:32
[…] Writers’ Village tells how to craft a “real” fictional world, and Marcy Kennedy goes deeper by exploring the use of smell in novels. […]
May 03, 2012 @ 16:40:50
Awesome post! And I have gone and smelled all the candles in the store. In addition to burning my nostrils, it also made me somewhat tipsy. Lol.
There are also smells that just really bother people, and not because they’re connected to an emotion. The smell of freshly cut grass always has me attempting to hold my breath and walk faster to get away from it. Sometimes my reactions to smells also make people laugh at me. Those can be added elements, especially if you’re looking for some humor.
May 07, 2012 @ 23:21:07
Haha. I think the service people always wonder if my husband and I are actually going to buy anything when we reach the third shelf and have sniffed everyone. Would you call that a candle high? 🙂
Good tip for adding humor! When I was a kid, I couldn’t stand the smell of peanut butter sandwiches. It makes absolutely no sense since I love peanut butter, but those sandwiches just made my skin crawl!
May 03, 2012 @ 18:06:37
Scents are a very powerful trigger for memories! You are so right, when used well in a book they are remembered for a very long time. I love when a story is brought to life using all the senses. Great post, Marcy.
May 07, 2012 @ 23:21:46
Me too 🙂 Thanks!
May 03, 2012 @ 20:51:06
My dad used to wear Grey Flannel when I was a little girl. When I wasn’t feeling well, or had a bad dream, I’d sleep on the floor of my parent’s closet. I could smell it on his clothes and it made me feel safe. 🙂
May 07, 2012 @ 23:22:51
What a great memory 🙂 My dad is a farmer, and so I spent a lot of hours playing in the shed while he was working on his equipment. To this day, the smell of tractor exhaust makes me feel content.
Blog Treasures 5~5 | Gene Lempp ~ Writer
May 05, 2012 @ 08:58:51
[…] How to make your novel Scratch and Sniff by Marcy Kennedy. Great advice for using smell in your writing. […]
Sunday Reads: 6 May 2012 - The Fictorian Era
May 06, 2012 @ 05:01:26
[…] Marcy Kennedy discusses the use of smell in How to Make Your Novel Scratch and Sniff. […]