Smells for Thought

I thought Cricket McRae's January 12th post on Inkspot about food being a useful tool to enhance storytelling (Food for Thought) was very interesting. So, I decided to expand on that post with a discussion about how stimulating the reader's sense of smell can also enhance storytelling.

Smells can trigger intense memories, especially childhood memories.

Smell and memory are closely linked because the olfactory bulb, which processes smell sensations, is part of the brain's limbic system. The limbic system also includes the amygdala, which processes emotion, and the hippocampus, which is responsible for associative learning. So memories and smells get associated or linked in our brains within the limbic system. Many people are transported back to their mother's kitchen when inhaling the scent of her signature dish. Or to their father's garage when smelling engine oil. And who doesn't think of Christmas when smelling the scent of pine?

Smells can affect behavior.

This concept is the basis for aromatherapy and scent marketing. In aromatherapy, lavender and chamomile are used to induce calming, lemon to lift depression, and peppermint to raise alertness, for example. Scent marketing is the use of aromas to enhance a customer experience or to brand a product. For example, a coconut spice scent is pumped through the HVAC system of the Mandalay Bay casino in Las Vegas to compliment the lush foliage and give gamblers more of a "jungle experience." And who hasn't heard of the idea of baking cookies or an apple pie before opening a house for a real estate showing?

Smells can trigger emotions.

Many of our likes and dislikes of particular smells are based on strong emotions we felt while first smelling them. When we're exposed to that smell again, the emotion comes along with it. Thus, when they smell the coppery scent of fresh blood, many people experience fear, fear that they felt when they were injured as a child. Based on past experiences, the same smell can trigger different emotions in different people. The salty scent of the ocean can bring happiness to someone who spent hours playing on the beach as a child or can bring fear to someone who almost drowned in the ocean in their past. Many smells, however, trigger the same emotional reaction in the majority of the human population. Most people, for example, find vanilla to be a sweet and satisfying scent, so it is a component of many perfumes.

So how does the author use smells? We can't infuse the pages of our books with scents, but we CAN describe those scents. Those descriptions evoke memories of the scents in readers' minds. Those scent memories bring along with them other memories and emotions and behaviors in the readers that are associated with the scents. And that pulls readers deeper into the scene, so they are THERE experiencing the story with the characters.

Here are some examples of how I used smells in my upcoming release, Deadly Currents, which features whitewater river ranger Mandy Tanner. What do you feel and remember when you read them?

In a description of Mandy's boyfriend (who probably smells like a lot of men who work outside):

"When he gathered her in his arms, Mandy inhaled his familiar scent of soap, leather, and the grassy outdoors. "

In a meal description:

"When he lifted the lid of the extra large pizza box in the kitchen, releasing hot steam filled with the tantalizing aroma of cheese, ham, and pineapple—her favorite toppings—she felt faint."

When Mandy walks into a beauty salon:

"A white jarred candle glowing on the reception desk scented the room with vanilla, though it didn’t completely mask the underlying chemical odors of hair coloring and nail polish."

So, evoking the scent memories of readers can be a very powerful tool for the writer. Can you think of a particularly powerful use of smell in a piece of fiction that you've recently read or written? Share it with us!

Food for Thought

Cricket McRae

I recently read a book which, for various reasons, left me cold. It didn’t do the job of engaging me in the story or making me care about the characters. There were several reasons, but one was that the characters never ate.

Off the top of my head I can think of several books where the people who populate the goings on don’t eat. Thrillers have to keep the pacing up, and eating isn’t thrilling (well, to most folks). Other authors have the good habit of skipping all the boring stuff even if they aren’t writing thrillers.

On the other side of the coin are the mysteries that revolve around food. Over time they’ve carved out their own subgenre: culinary mysteries. And boy, are they popular.

My Home Crafting Mysteries don’t really fall into that vaunted category. There are no caterers, no bakeries, no restaurants. Some of the home crafts are food oriented – cheese, mead, and home canned veggies. But really? My characters simply eat a lot. Not a lot in terms of volume, but certainly on a regular basis. Almost like actual people.

Food can be a useful tool to enhance storytelling. Another layer to add to atmosphere, an indicator of things going on under the surface. And some food has deep symbolic roots the author can tap into. It can:

Reflect regional tastes. My books are mostly set in the Pacific Northwest, and many of the menus include salmon, crab and other seafood which is readily available there. When I moved the fourth in the series to Colorado, meals reflected dishes from south of the border and also featured some of the Southern cooking that Sophie Mae’s mother grew up with.

Indicate the time of year in which the story takes place. Heaven Preserve Us is set in February, so the fresh offerings are limited while the canned goods get a good working out. Spin a Wicked Web is set in June, when fresh peas and new potatoes tossed with parsley butter or salads made from baby greens are realistic options.

Show emotion and the relationships between characters. Missed meals indicate stress and urgency but so can eating peanut butter out of the jar with the biggest spoon in the drawer or wiping out all six portions of chocolate mousse chilling in the fridge. When eleven-year-old Erin is upset about the death of a neighbor, Sophie Mae and her housemate make her favorite meal of spaghetti and meatballs. When Barr refuses a square of Sophie Mae’s classic carrot cake, she knows something is seriously amiss.

Offer additional sensory data without hijacking the story or purpling the prose. Eating is basic, and adding the layer of cooking and food to a story can help ground the reader more firmly.

How else do you think food/eating can enhance a story? Or do you think it detracts from the important action? As a reader, do you enjoy culinary touches in a book? As an author, do you use food as an element of your writing?

Beyond the Usual Five

Cricket McRae

A few years ago I enrolled in a Certificate Program for Advanced Fiction Writers at the University of Washington. It was one of the best things I've ever done for my writing, and it garnered me a kickass critique group to boot. The year-long program was taught by Marjorie Reynolds, author of The Starlight Drive-In, and now a good friend.

Marjorie had a bit of thing about smells, though. As in, every time she'd hand one of my pieces back to me, at least one page would have the notation, "smells?" in the margin. It wasn't just me. It happened to everyone. By the end of classes we all had smells in our novels. Lots of them. And flavors and sounds and sights and texture galore.

Of course, sensory detail in our writing draws the reader in, affords depth to settings and characters and concretizes the story. We knew this, but perhaps didn't employ the full range of senses that we could. And Marjorie was certainly right that smell -- the most primitive of all -- can be the most evocative.

Later, at a nature-writing workshop, participants brainstormed about other senses that went beyond the usual five. And boy, did we come up with an interesting list. I've been adding to it since then, and often use it as a jumping off point for a particular writing exercise in my own workshops.

Here are a few additional "senses" that can add atmosphere, attitude, and depth to fiction and nonfiction alike. Most use the usual sensory organs, but not all.

• Sense of vibration
• Sense of multitudinousness
• Sense of enclosure -- can be comfortable or claustrophobic
• Humidity
• Feeling of lift/fall (as in an elevator)
• Dizziness and/or vertigo
• Speed
• Gravity
• Balance
• Echolocation
• Sick-building syndrome
• Flight sensation
• Air pressure (e.g. ears popping on a plane)
• Numbness (e.g. the effect of clove oil)
• Temperature
• Light and dark
• Presence of another
• Sense of being watched
• Subsonic vibration (e.g. dog whistle)
• Depth perception
• Texture (may be felt, seen, heard or all)
• Feeling like you're still moving after getting out of a car
• Barometric pressure

I'd love to learn about more of these secondary senses and add them to my list. Any suggestions?

Before signing off I want to add that I've waited to announce my new blog, Hearth Cricket, on Inkspot until I had enough posts to give readers a good idea of what it's like. Less practical writing advice, and more musings about writing and the things I write about -- domestic arts, recipes, gardening, local and seasonal eating, fiber art, etc. If that piques your interest, stop on by.

Serendipity and Destruction

Cricket McRae

Never start a book with the weather, Elmore Leonard tells us, and it's a dictum I adhere to religiously. I do, however, have two notebooks full of observations about nature that I mine in order to lend credence to the atmosphere of my novels. Things like what the air smells like at night in the middle of October, or after the first rain in August or all the damn time in January. How snow behaves, what's blooming when, how the air feels against your skin, how the birds sound at four a.m. in the spring versus the fall. Mostly tiny things, mere seasoning for the primary flavors of plot and character.

But my nature journals are all from the Pacific Northwest. My current work in progress is set in Colorado, where I live now. In the final climactic scene(s), one of the rocks I'm throwing at my long suffering protagonist is weather. Really bad weather. I've researched the air flow patterns, what happens inside the kinds of clouds common to the area, what circumstances create hail and tornadoes, but I lacked the little, unusual details that make a storm a specific storm.

Sunday morning I'm working in my office. The room darkens. The sky has turned to mercury. Huge, isolated drops of rain splat against the pavement outside. Then the deluge hits, accompanied by an almost conversational rumble of thunder. I abandon my computer, make a cup of tea, and go out to the covered front porch.

The lightening is constant. A yellow streak zigzags overhead, and the thunder roars like a jet engine moving from west to east for a long three seconds. Another flash sounds like a rifle shot, complete with the dopleresque zchwinggggg of an old-timey western. The rain turns to hail.

The ground squirms with quarter-inch ice pellets. I walk out from the overhang to see if they hurt. Not too bad. My neighbor, the mechanic, runs out with an umbrella to cover the rose bush his wife just planted. He sees me and stops. I wave. The hand he lifts in return is tentative. That's okay. They've wondered a little about me ever since I asked him how to cut a brake line without getting caught.

The hail increases to half an inch in diameter. At that size it officially stings like hell. I run inside to grab a notebook. When I return to the front porch a wave of crisp fragrance hits my nose. First I identify mint. The hail has pummeled the patch of spearmint into the ground, muddling it as if for the world's biggest mojito. A wisp of licorice joins in, from the sunset hyssop bushes by the driveway. Then the lavender scent of the smashed bee balm leaves. I run through the house and throw open the door by the garage to look out at the herb garden. Again, the smell of destruction is amazing: oregano, tarragon, sage, rosemary and thyme fill the air.

I inhale deeply until I realize I'm going to hyperventilate if I don't knock it off. It's wonderful. It's terrible. The sound of my pen scribbling is lost in the rattle of the ice pellets that continue to fall.

There will be a lot of work, cleaning up and replanting. The huge pink peonies are lost, their dowdy, blowzy blooms lying like dead fish in the bark mulch. And I won't have to worry about eating salad for a few days; those delicate leaves have been reduced to green mush.

For now. It's early in the season, and I cling to the hope that with a little help, nature will bounce back in her inimitable way. In the meantime, I've got some of those telling details that I wouldn't have otherwise. Will I use all of them? Of course not. It's not a scene about a storm -- it's a scene about someone trying to get away from a crazed murderer.

And when it comes to the tornado? I'll just wing that one, thankyouverymuch.