Road Trip Wednesday is hosted by YA Highway.
This Week's Topic: The Five Senses. How you use them in your writing, how you are inspired by them, pictorial essays, that character with smelly socks, books that have used them well, the ones that are currently missing from your work, etc.
Guys, I'm so bad at this. Detail is not one of my strengths as a writer, so I rarely write passages which describe a sunset, the sound of a train, the texture of snow, etc.
My current WIP, Duets, calls for description. My last novel was intentionally set in Nowhere Specific--it's a nice place--but Duets is set in the maritimes, where I've lived all my life and love too much to misrepresent. Also, the three main characters in Duets are musicians, so sound and how that affects all the other senses is incredibly important.
I'm going to share what inspired this novel in terms of the five senses, and hopefully it'll help me see what details I need to incorporate in this novel.
Sight
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| The ocean, especially when the waves are big |
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| The inside of a cottage, where my characters stay |
Smell
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| One of my absolute favourite smells: Sunscreen |
Touch
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| The texture of saltwater-hair |
Taste
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| Barbecue! |
| Sound Since Duets is about, well, duets, there are so many songs I could've picked for this. The Civil Wars' album Barton Hollow pretty much is my playlist for this, and I chose "Forget Me Not" to represent it because this video is adorable and captures everything I love about The Civil Wars. Most of the music in Duets is folk or country, and this is its playlist (which is also a work in progress) if you're interested: Duets' Playlist. |
7 comments:
Love the photos...I get a nice idea of your story. I think describing a real place is sometimes more daunting than making one up. True, the facts are there for you to take, but like you said, there's the need to represent it truthfully. All of the senses you described also describe my trips to the beach. I think that's why using the senes is so important. I've never been to your characters' beach but I already have feelings about the tastes, textures, sounds, etc. that they are experiencing. It's such a great way to bring the reader in.
I think when we're writing about real places that are so invested in memory, it would be harder not to include the sensory details. It's not one thing that makes a place so beloved, it's the heady cocktail of what it looked like when you first saw it, how it smells when you come back from a trip, etc. Love that cottage picture, the paneling is so warm.
I can definitely see where the inspiration comes from in those things--they're all so poignant. Especially the smell of sunscreen, lol. I can always smell out the one person wearing sunscreen in a crowd.
Great examples, I especially love the saltwater hair!
Touch, smell, and taste are so important. They make everything "real" for the reader. Great post. <3 your new follower :)
All my friends think I'm weird for liking the smell of sunscreen, so I'm glad I'm not the only one out there! And saltwater hair is the best. (I mostly just love the ocean and everything about it, really.)
I've passed on the Liebster Blog Award to you. Details are here: http://ohthevoices.blogspot.com/2011/08/moving-award.html
Tracey - Thank you! Oh, I absolutely think a real place is more difficult than a fictional one for all the reasons you said, hopefully I'll do ok!
Angelica - Ah, that's so true. I'll have to remember that! Thanks, I love cottages for that very reason.
Francesca - I always am that person ;) Heh, everyone I know hates the smell but I LOVE it :P
Michelle - Thank you!
Kelley - I agree, and thank you for the follow!
Stephanie - MINE TOO. I think they're the weird ones, though. But yes, I love the ocean too <3 Thanks for the award! :)
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