The five senses: improving SMELL

If you ask a child what they should include in a description or story, they invariably say ‘the five senses’. 👁 👃 👅 👂 🖐

They are correct. This is an important area to consider.

But there are so many ways to use the five senses creatively to add depth and mood to the piece of writing.

One of the five senses is SMELL. 👃

The human nose can detect one trillion different odours, and it outperforms the eye and the ear in terms of the number of stimuli it can distinguish between.

So, including SMELL in our story and description writing is key.

And cliches abound in children’s writing (It smelt smoky. / It smelt like smoke. / It smelt dusty. etc.).

So, to up-level this sense, consider SMELL linked to MEMORY. 🧠

Imagine

Imagine a character running home in the rain. 🏃🌧

A child might say, ‘It smelt wet.’

This adds nothing to the description.

Instead, could you try and link the smell to a holiday memory? 🧳

Example

It smelt like the pebbly beach in Cornwall. 🏖

Task

Link a memory to these smells/situations: 🧠 + 👃

1) Smoke drifted across the garden. It reminded him of ...

2) She ran through the fields, the lavender reminding her of ...

3) As they entered the forest, the heavy scent of pine reminded Sami of ...

4) The kitchen was hot, and the bubbling pot filled the room with the smell of ...

I hope this is useful and you can use it in your next piece of writing.

Anna 🙂