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TASTE:
Taste is
perhaps the most difficult of the senses to describe, though
some authors have certainly mastered the technique.
Christopher
Morley's incomparable description of cider in his essay on Cider
is worth noting. He says: "At the peak of its deliciousness it
has a small, airy sparkle against the roof of the mouth, a
delicate tactile sensation like the feet of dancing flies. This,
we presume, is the 4 ½ to 7 percent of sin with which fermented
cider is credited by works of reference."
((I can't
think of anything which could more accurately describe
effervescence than "a small airy sparkle against the roof of the
mouth."))
Another
master's account of muscadines:
"...a grape,
known by the musical name of muscadine, which I esteem as
altogether the wildest and raciest of all wild fruit. Its
juice has the musty flavor of old wine along with a strange
aromatic quality peculiarly its own."
SIGHT:
Sight is the
easiest of the senses to describe. The hero might bring the
heroine's character to life by the way he sees her, and vise
versa.
The
point-of-view character is the one who makes a scene come to
life for the reader. The POV character should use all the
senses at some time or other, but the author will find the sense
of sight to be the most easily accomplished.
From SONG OF
INNOCENCE — A scene in which the hero sees, feels, and hears
what is happening.
Enemy troops
were everywhere, as if they had materialized out of the air.
The world exploded. A sudden searing pain hit Charles in the
chest, another in the head. He felt himself lifted up and
slammed into the dirt. Clutching at the fire in his bosom, he
brought his arms up and stared in confusion at the dripping
blood.
Then he saw
and understood, but nothing seemed real. Everything was misty
green, obscure and turbid, like seeing under water. In a state
of shock, he lowered his arms and lay back, semiconscious.
Pain
engulfed him, filling every cell of his body, swallowing him in
its intensity. A black hole opened up, and he fell into it.
When his senses returned, he focused on the only images his
brain
registered:
the golden sun slanting through the forest growth, snow-capped
summits of the majestic Gross-Glockner and Venediger mountains,
green and black hues of pines and firs and the heady scent of
them, high- soaring eagles, and brilliantly colored wild flowers
tumbling down the mountainside to the valley floor. At intervals
he rallied enough to know he was being carried. The sound of
human voices seeped into his consciousness but he could not tell
what the voices said or to whom they belonged. Pain clutched at
him, tore his body into shreds of agonizing awareness and, as
quickly as it came, it thrust him off into a black void of
unawareness. He continued to come and go, fighting for
consciousness, feeling every aching fiber of his being, then
gratefully plunging back into the blessed darkness.
ODOR:
Consider
synonyms for the noun smell: odor, aroma, perfume, scent,
fragrance, redolence, stench, stink, savor, tang. Also consider:
essence, sweetness, musk, breath, whiff, and taint.
Many
adjectives are useful in describing odors. If you are
imaginative, the following words will call up the odors to which
these particular adjectives apply: acrid, pungent, sharp, fishy,
musty, sour, sweet, delicate, strong, far-reaching, crisp,
sickening, curious, strange, raw, rancid, cloying, penetrating,
sensual, stinging, tantalizing, spicy, suffocating, fetid,
gaseous, cool, hot, metallic.
Note how
masters of expression make odors realistic:
Robert Louis
Stevenson's The Sea Fog.
The air
struck with a little chill, and set me coughing. It smelt
strong of the fog, like the smell of a washing house, but with a
shrewd tang of the sea salt.
Christopher
Morley's The Smell of Smells.
As soon as I
stepped out of doors I caught that faint but unmistakable musk
in the air; that dim, warm sweetness. It was the smell of
summer..... when one first issues from the house at breakfast
time it is at its highest savor. Irresistibly it suggests worms,
and a tin can with the lid jaggedly bent back, and a pitchfork
turning up the earth behind the cow stable. Fishing was first
invented when Adam smelled that odor in the air.
Now notice
how others than masters do it:
THE
CHIMERA:
The darkness
was complete, no stars, no moon; he was not out in the alley
where he should be. He sniffed. No smell of garbage, or mildew,
or fleshly human corruption assaulted his nostrils. But a
different odor, a chemical odor tickled his nose, and a subtle
musky animal scent mixed with it penetrated his consciousness.
An almost
imperceptible panting--panting too near--set his heart thudding,
and he grew still, holding his breath. His eyes finally
absorbed the image of a large beast, and his ears picked up the
soft sound of its grunting.
SOUND:
We have
already briefly touched on the sense of hearing (sound) with
examples of imitative words. Most words denoting sound are
imitative words, such as: whine, bark, growl, bray, roar croak,
cackle, neigh. These words and others like them which are used
in describing sounds made by animals, birds, etc. are
instinctively chosen by writers.
What words
would we use to describe the pleasant sound of a flowing stream?
We might use any of these imitative words: ripples, gurgles,
murmurs, trickles, splashes, patters, babbles.
However if we were describing the sound made by a swift-flowing
stream (or a waterfall), we might say that it : rushes, roars,
plunges, swells, bellows, or thunders--all of which are also
imitative words.
Thompson in his By Ways and Bird Notes, writes:
Often I awoke in the small hours and heard the raccoons growling
and chattering in the brake. At such times the swash of a river
had a strangely soothing effect, a lullaby of fairy land.
Again, an example from SONG OF INNOCENCE:
They walked for some time before emerging into a picturesque
glade where a stream swelled into a vast whirling pool at the
foot of a magnificent waterfall.... a thundering splendor of a
torrent, crashing from the mountain top and roaring into
high-spitting white foam below.
INTERESTING FACT: The only man-made structure visible from space
is the Great Wall of China.
INTERESTING
FACT: Christopher Columbus had blond hair.
INTERESTING
FACT: Karl Marx once served as a reporter on the New York Herald
Tribune (then known as the New York Tribune.) In 1848 he worked
in the London office of the Tribune, and his boss, the managing
editor, was Richard Henry Dana, who himself became the
world-famous author of Two Years Before the Mast.
INTERESTING
FACT: The Grand Canyon was not seen by a white man until after
the Civil War. It was first entered on May,29,1869, by the
geologist, John Wesley Powell.
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