RTW: The Five Senses

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.
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.

This is a really hard topic for me because description is definitely my writing weakness. I've been actively concentrating on making sure I get the right amount of description and it uses all of the five senses.

I think the most commonly used senses are sight, sound, and smell. Sight is definitely the most common because it's the easiest to use in description. The two most under-used are taste and touch. Those last two are definitely the ones missing the most from my work.

In Where There's Smoke, I tend to lean more towards the smell side of the five senses because the story takes place on a ranch. And the first thing I think of when I think "horse barn" are the mixture of scents of horses, hay, and leather. Here are some examples of the five senses appearing in my story:

Sight of the dirt road leading from the ranch into town

Sounds of trees rustling and crickets chirping in the dark

Smell of smoke

Taste of a kiss

The feel of a horse's coat

Comments

Yahong said…
YAY for horses! And I'm thinking the taste of a kiss is pretty common. :D
August 3, 2011 at 10:33 AM
Miss Cole said…
I really like the use of touch in this!
August 3, 2011 at 10:37 AM
Kristin Halbrook said…
Yes, definitely a lot of smells on a ranch, both good and . . . less good! A ranch setting has so much to draw from, senses-wise.
August 3, 2011 at 12:32 PM
Sarah said…
I struggle with description, too. I have a hard time making it noninvasive within the context of the story. Cool photos!
August 3, 2011 at 1:16 PM
Angelica R. Jackson said…
It's funny how most people are kind of grossed out by the smell of horse manure, but to horsey people it just smells like companionship and possibilities.
August 3, 2011 at 2:31 PM
Tracey Neithercott said…
Yes, that's exactly what I think of when I think of a horse barn. I'm terrible with taste and touch, too. I have to make a note for myself to include them in a later draft.
August 3, 2011 at 3:40 PM
Michelle Schusterman said…
The sound of crickets - great one. I love that sound.
August 3, 2011 at 9:37 PM
Alison Miller said…
Description is my weakness too, and I definitely need to work on taste. Love your pictures!
August 4, 2011 at 6:45 AM
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