Storytelling Device: You do NOT need all five senses in every single scene
Over ten years ago in a critique group I attended, the big thing was: “You need ALL five senses in every scene. That’s the only way you can possibly immerse the reader into the story.”
Now that I have 15 years of self-publishing experience under my belt (if you don’t count vanity presses from back in the day), I have learned that trying to cram all five senses into every scene will pull a reader out of the story.
Imagine a scene where the dying father in a hospital is ready to reveal the family legacy to the son who is being pursued by the mafia when–to add more senses to the scene–the son hears a bird or the son notices the smell of the hospital food or the son feels the rough fabric of his pants. It’s stuff like this that will pull a reader out of the story.
The alternative would be to introduce everything immediately in a scene, right? No. The best thing you can do at the beginning of a scene is to hook the reader into it what is happening to the character emotionally. The stuff the character touches, tastes, hears, sees, or smells is secondary… unless the sense in question leads to the character’s emotional response.
For example, The rose scented perfume brought him back to a time in childhood when his mother would rock him to sleep after a nightmare. We know from this that the smell is comforting to him. The comfort is an emotion. Considering he is about to see his father who is on his deathbed, choosing this particular sense and the emotional response at this specific moment adds to the story nicely. It ties into a time when he is losing his father.
But if you start the scene with something like the following example, then the reader is probably going to think, “So what?” Here is the example: He sneakers squeaked on the hard tile of the bright hospital corridor. His nose wrinkled. Even the flowers from the gift shop couldn’t mask the sharp aroma from the cleaning supplies used to keep the place sterile. All are okay, but do they really address the emotional state this character is in? And how would the hospital environment matter to the story, which is a mafia thriller? The character is going to spend the majority of this novel running for his life because the mafia is going to be tracking him down since he knows the secret.
Also, there’s little point in info dumping the senses while the son is in the middle of the scene where he is learning the secret.
For example…
He leaned forward to hear what his father had to say over the man’s raspy breathing. His father had urged him to come down here at once, saying that this was a matter of life and death. He braced himself for what was to come. The untouched vegetable soup nearby was barely noticeable over the cleaner that permeated the room.
“There is a man you need to watch out for,” his father forced out. “His name is Leo Vitale.”
Leo Vitale? He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like that name had a familiar ring to it. But when had he heard it? And why? The sunlight pouring through the open blinds caught on his watch. He had to pull back his hand to the cool texture of his jeans to stop the glare.
“I’m the only one who knows what Leo did two months ago,” his father continued. “I couldn’t go to the police. With his political ties, they’ll never arrest him. He’s capable of many things. Many are afraid of him. You need to go to the FBI and tell them what happened that night.” His father coughed and struggled for his next breath.
He hurried to give him something to drink. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear this. Undoubtedly, this was going to put him in jeopardy–just as it had his father. A nurse passing by hummed the familiar commercial jingle of the coffee he had just had that morning, a coffee with a taste that still lingered on his tongue.
His father took a shaky breath then proceeded to say, “This is what I saw that night.”
I crammed in the senses into a tight spot in this example, but I wanted to keep it brief so that it wouldn’t take up too much of this post.
I hope you get my point. I don’t see why four of those five senses I just used in that example matter. The father having trouble breathing and hearing how raspy matters because we’re emphasizing that he’s near death. Using senses is good, but you want to pick and choose the ones that add to the scene. You don’t put anything in that will detract from it. The bright sunlight, the cool jeans, the nurse humming, the smell of soup, and the small room do not matter. When the reader thinks back on the scene, you want the reader to remember the main character’s dread, the father’s death, and the secret the father reveals to him. Keeping the scene focused helps to maximize the emotional power of the scene.
Not all scenes are going to be this emotional. Some are transition scenes. Even in those, you don’t want to bog the reader down with useless details. You want to keep the pace flowing smoothly.
Let’s say the main character leaves the hospital. This would be a transition scene:
His stomach lurched as he hurried to his red Toyota. He was supposed to be an ordinary man, just living his ordinary life. The safe and familiar world he was used to suddenly seemed unstable. He fumbled for the key in his pocket. The cool metal brushed against his fingers as he pulled it out. He glanced around. Was he being watched? Did Leo have his men stalking him right at this moment? Nearby, a bird sang a sweet melody from a cherry giving off a vanilla fragrance that wafted on the breeze. His hands shaking, he struggled to insert the key into the lock. After a moment, he managed to unlock the door and slip into the car. Only once he was inside the car did he feel somewhat safe.
I managed to insert all five senses in there, but did it matter that his car is red or that it’s a Toyota at this point in the story? (Maybe it’ll matter later if he needs to find it amid a bunch of cars when he’s in pursuit, but it doesn’t matter right now.) What matters is that he’s scared. Does it matter what his key feels like? (It might later if he’s in the dark and needs to retrieve it amid contents in a box, but that would only need to be disclosed later in the story. It doesn’t matter right now.) Does it matter that a bird is nearby? Does it matter what kind of smell is coming from a nearby tree? (The bird and tree have no impact at all on this story since we’ll never deal with these two things again. All these two things do is add useless filler to the story.)
Basically, you only need to add a sense in the scene when it means something to the story. When the character needs to be aware of it, it’s a good time to bring it into play. Otherwise, it detracts from the story.
I’m not saying I always did things this way. I made a lot of mistakes in my writing over the years, and adding too many senses was one of them. As I write more books, I have been developing an appreciation for the subtleties that is inherent in storytelling.
My rule of thumb is to be the character. Look at everything in the scene from that character’s standpoint. What matters most to the character? What would this specific character notice? How would this character react to something? Why does this character care or not care? It’s not our job as the author to tell a reader what to think or feel by inserting things that don’t belong there. Our job as the author is to get into the character’s point of view so we let the reader know what the character is thinking, what the character is noticing, and what the character is feeling.
And quite frankly, being this deep into the characters is what makes writing the story a lot of fun. We get to leave ourselves behind and live other lives. Then, what makes it even better, is that the reader will come along and be inside these characters. So really, storytelling is a shared venture between the writer and the reader. To maximize the effectiveness of this venture, it’s important to focus in on the aspects that truly matter to the characters you’re writing.
