Writers Abroad Magazine Issue 7 November 2017 | Page 13

WRITERS ABROAD MAGAZINE: THE THIRD SPACE
SMELLING OF ROSES
BY Alyson Hilbourne
We all know that good stories engage the senses, but sometimes we need to
remind ourselves how we can achieve this.
Our sense of smell is one area we often don’t consider as much as the other
senses. It is a more intrinsic part of us and not one we are always explicit about.
But think of the ways that smell can add to a story.
Firstly, smells can help with setting. Consider coconut sunscreen, fish and chips
frying, ozone, rotting seaweed and candyfloss and you will have conjured up a
seaside landscape without expressly saying so. Likewise antiseptic, boiled
cabbage, urine, floor polish and fear might evoke a hospital or old people’s home.
Smells can also help set an emotion. The sour odour of sweat can show a
character is fearful, or a chemical smell might evoke danger and worry. The sweet
smell of chocolate can bring happiness and (for me) that first coffee waft of the
day brings relief and awakening.
Other smells bring to mind a familiarity or history with a person: lavender for a
grandmother or aftershave for a boyfriend; or with an activity like gingerbread at
Christmas or pine with cleaning.
A quick search on the internet told me that we react to different types of smell.
Different websites offered varied lists but several agreed on the following: fragrant
(florals and perfumes), citrus (lemon, lime etc), fruity (non citrus fruits), woody
(pine and fresh cut grass), chemical (ammonia, bleach), sweet (chocolate, vanilla),
minty (eucalyptus or camphor), toasted and nutty (popcorn, peanut butter),
pungent (blue cheese, cigar smoke) and finally decay (rotting meat, sour milk).
How many of these do I or you ever think to use in our writing?
A poll by the Daily Mail printed in 2015 recorded the (British) nation’s favourite
smells as fresh bread baking, cooking bacon and freshly cut grass. At the other
end of the scale were bins, drains and body odour. Smelling from either category
might determine your character’s mood at any point in time.
But some smells are not static and can reflect a change happening in your story
as well. Think of a couple arguing while the toast goes from that nice breakfast
smell to the acrid odour of burning, or a cake cooking that turns to carbon while
someone sleeps or forgets, or as happens where I live, a farmer starts spreading
muck.
And finally the act of smelling has entered our daily language. Will your detective
smell something fishy, sniff out the truth or be put off the scent? Can your
heroine perceive the sweet smell of success? As you write your next story, poem
or nonfiction piece, remember that a smell can offer the reader a short cut to a
person, a place or a feeling and tell them something without you necessarily
having to explain it.
And you’ll be smelling of roses.
12 | NOVEMBER 2017