Write This, Not That

Part 4 of 5: Tips for taking your fiction to the next level.

Part 4: Overlapping the Senses

“Gee, Joolz, what are we gonna do tonight?”

“The same thing we do every night, Writer. Try to take over the writing world.”

Is it possible to see smells?

To taste a touch?

To hear pain?

Only if we’re in the hands of a skilled writer.

The overlapping of senses is as common as overlapping shingles on a roof, but few people realize it.

Take taste and smell for example. These two senses are more intertwined than overlapped; it’s hard to have one without the other.

Just try to enjoy a bowl of no-chicken noodle soup (it’s a real soup — I’m a vegetarian) when you have a cold — very hard to do.

The sensations that evoke taste when something is put in the mouth are complex and involve much more than taste alone.

It’s our jobs as writers to create — with our words — those same complex sensations.

As you draw on the power of sense, you will draw the reader into the story.

How?

It’s easy — just unlearn what you learned in school about the five senses.