A post on the blog A Portia Adams Adventure discussed the author’s adding a heightened sense of smell in the protagonist, who has suffered a loss of hearing and speech. The understanding was that it’s unusual for writers to include the olfactory sense.
I was intrigued by that post, so I checked my nightstand copy of IrishFirebrands to see how I did with including the sense of smell. In the first ten (10) chapters (127 pages), I had written twenty-two (22) references to scent! Chapters 4, 7 and 10 each had five (5) references to a smell! Only Chapter 8 had nothing olfactory about it. Some are fairly simple examples of awareness of a scent (or the lack thereof), and others are parts of more involved descriptions of a multi-sensory experience. Here they are:
1. On the hearth, there burnt a small fire that smelt of apple wood.
2. She…
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When writing, I have to remind myself constantly about the sense of smell. It isn’t “natural” for me to include it, but it can be so evocative!
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