Smell

The sense of smell can be overlooked by writers when they describe, even though it can be the most provocative of all the senses.

 

                         

• While a movie can show you sight and sound, smell - and the other two senses - is an experience only writing can give.

 

Smell is a concise sense. It can paint a whole scene instantly. To describe a hospital room, one could point out the white walls, tall windows, and arrays of blue beds. But writing about "a musty scent with sharp disinfectant undertone" can craft a faster image.

 

It is a difficult sense to describe, but with time and experience, the secrets of this elusive sense will unveil themselves to the writer naturally.

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• "Straightening up, he was struck with a humid waft of boiled hot dogs and some kind of furry bean-based soup that threw him right back into tenth grade." —Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past

Here, Marcel Proust understands that smell is not stationary, but rather a fluid experience, difficult to pin down. He remains flexible and abstract when describing the scent, using the adjective "furry" successfully, despite it being unconventional.