SMELLS LIKE VIVID DESCRIPTION

Caro Verbeek identifies herself as “a smell historian.” Take a look at her TED video to get a fast but robust context on how smell works, what it can mean, etc.

I was surprised to hear in this video that, “Smell is apparently the strongest inducer of memories—of early memories. And the beauty is, even people suffering from Alzheimer’s dementia, never lose their olfactory memory.”

If you look back to last week’s post about How to Tell, it’s all about triggering memories. So a particular smell can help introduce some further detail about either or both of the world and the character. For instance, I find the smell of old books particularly delightful. This is my childhood love of the old books in the library coming to the forefront, and helping to propel my own love of collecting vintage books decades and decades later. If I were a character in a novel the smell of an old book could trigger a two-paragraph mini info dump about my childhood spent primarily in books, which turned into an adulthood spent primarily in books.

I’ve said before that we should try to appeal to all five senses as much as possible, not just relying on what things look like, but any and every cue that can bring a place or a moment alive in or stories.

We can think about smell in terms of worldbuilding, too. Like the significance of myrrh in Christian canon. I did not know until watching Verbeek’s video that myrrh means “bitter,” and was presented to the infant Jesus because it “stood for Christ’s future suffering.” What does a particular smell stand for in the culture you’ve created? How do people and cultures hide smells, add smells, avoid smells, and what do they associate with a particular odor (negative) or aroma (positive)?

In Frank Herbert’s masterpiece Dune, a smell similar to cinnamon is indicative of the spice mélange. Paul and other characters also notice that smell after sandworms pass. This helps to link sandworms to spice, a major turning point in the novel.

Smells can also poke certain emotional triggers in your POV character, and go a long way to establishing the atmosphere of a scene. A terrific example of this can be found in the first two paragraphs of the classic science fiction novella “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell (as Don A. Stuart):

The place stank. A queer, mingled stench that only the ice-buried cabins of an Antarctic camp know, compounded of reeking human sweat, and the heavy, fish-oil stench of melted seal blubber. An overtone of liniment combated the musty smell of sweat-and-snow-drenched furs. The acrid odor of burnt cooking fat, and the animal, not-unpleasant smell of dogs, diluted by time, hung in the air. 

Lingering odors of machine oil contrasted sharply with the taint of harness dressing and leather. Yet somehow, through all that reek of human beings and their associates—dogs, machines and cooking—came another taint. It was a queer, neck-ruffling thing, a faintest suggestion of an odor alien among the smells of industry and life. And it was a life-smell. But it came from the thing that lay bound with cord and tarpaulin on the table, dripping slowly, methodically onto the heavy planks, dank and gaunt under the unshielded glare of the electric light. 

Endless examples like this are out there. Sensitize yourself to this as you’re reading novels and short stories and you’ll find the sense of smell dropping in and out quite often. Then, drop it in and out of your own writing wherever, whenever, and whyever it helps.

—Philip Athans

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