Be Sure to Add the Senses to Your Writing
Seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling are the five senses. Do you use each of them when you are writing. When describing what your character sees, don't forget to add colors and shapes. What does your character hear when walking somewhere? When you character touches something, how does it feel? When your character eats, how does the food taste? Is there anything else your character tastes that should be described? Last but not least are the smells. When I first started writing mysteries, my cop son-in-law bemoaned the fact that you couldn't smell anything in a book or a movie and that every crime scene, especially a murder, had many smells. That prompted my Rocky Bluff P.D. novel, Smell of Death . Unfortunately, that book can only be read as an electronic book and right now is only available on the Kindle. In my latest book, An Axe to Grind , their are many scents, from the salty ocean spray to the disgusting odors emanating from an abandoned warehouse. Adding all t...