The Five Senses can be fun to work with and are immensely important, too, when it comes to fleshing out characters and bringing them to vivid life. It’s a tool to use sparingly but vital where there is tension, emotion of any kind – love, anger, fear, tenderness, joy. Describing the reactions of the character through the senses, enhances descriptions of shock, pain, moods, allowing the reader a clear glimpse into the internal workings of the character.
Imagine yourself in your character’s position.Where are they?Are they sitting, standing, lying down?Who else is there?What is the context?
The five senses are:
Sight
Smell
Taste
Hearing
Sensation
Go through the list, reflecting on how each of your character’s senses are affected in a given situation.
Are they positive or negative?
Define the effect(s).
What is the quality of the eg. smell? Can you pin it to something specific. Is it familiar or unfamiliar? What does it remind the character of? Either in terms of quality (a specific scent) or experience (the place where they first smelled it/a person who uses it?)
Does this have an effect on the other senses? Eg.(sensation) hair stands on end because smell triggers memory was of a car accident or skin feels warm because sound triggers memory of the seaside on a sunny day etc.
Does the combination evoke another scene, time, memory?
What does it tell us about your character’s personality?
You have to be quite reader-centred here. The object is to make this character as close to flesh and blood as possible and then bring your reader into their specific circumstance, so that they are in step with the character, going through their trials and triumphs with them.
Of course while you’re working on your character’s perceptions, you are automatically building up their surroundings and infusing them with detail, colour and much of what stimulates the five sense.
It might be useful to prepare a chart using the questions in this blog to build up a general portrait of your character so that you know exactly how they think, feel, react. The writer of Thelma and Louise claims she knew even which brand of toothpaste her characters used. You don’t have to use all the information but if you know it, your character portrayals and the overall emotional impact of your novel will definitely benefit.
Have a go. It’s very satisfying indeed. |
