Last week Looseleaf’s Kristy S. Gilbert was an editing special guest at the Life, the Universe, and Everything Symposium, and we’re going to post a few snippets from her panels. Today’s bit is from the panel “I Sense Something: Adding the Senses.” Excerpts are lightly edited for clarity (and some parts are summarized).
Stephen Gashler: Some sensory details we can readily identify with, like the color of a sunset—the pinks and the oranges—or maybe the barking dog in the distances. Some things are harder to describe, specifically the tasting and the smelling and feeling sensations. Given that some of these are overlooked what are some tips you have for describing some of these harder-to-describe sensations?
Michaelbrent Collings pulled out some tough love, pointing out that just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it isn’t important to your writing or worth the effort to learn. He also noted that you can use other sensory descriptions. Saying “the orange tasted bright and clean” uses some visual descriptions, but it describes flavor.
Kristy S. Gilbert: Along those lines, I also think—it’s not necessarily that you have to get the other person to know exactly what you’re talking about. Like when you say something is the pink of a sunset, it’s not so they know exactly what pink it is: it’s so you get the emotional note of a sunset into your scene. So I can say I went outside and the air smelled of dying worms—and that is the smell after a massive rainstorm, and all the worms come out, and they’re all dying, but I don’t need to spend a bunch of time being like, “Yeah, it’s that weird metallic smell/taste/thing you get after a long rainstorm.” I just have someone walk out, and the world is sopping wet and smells like dying worms.
Michaelbrent Collings: You’ve ruined rain for me.
Kristy S. Gilbert: Ha! Even if a reader hasn’t made that connection in their brain—like, not everyone has realized that that’s what that metallic smell after rain is, that it’s dead worms on the sidewalk. But even if you don’t know that, I don’t have to get you to smell what dying worms smells like. I’ve painted a scene. That’s not a romantic scene, it’s not a playful scene, it’s a gross, upset, depressing scene, and I’ve conveyed that emotion even if I haven’t let you know what dying worms smell like.
Jessica Guernsey: It’s about your word choice! An orange that’s clean vs. an orange that’s sour and bitter. [. . .] The senses you bring in should add to the story.
Fellow panelist Charlie Pulsipher made many good points about sensory maps as a way of navigating a scene and synesthesia.
Some key takeaways from this panel:
- Vary sensory details to create more immersive scenes and emphasize particular moments.
- Root sensory details in the character, emotion, and story.
- It’s worth the work!
If you’d like help with your prose style—including evocative sensory details—contact us about line editing or a manuscript evaluation.
Leave a Reply