#218: The Importance of the Senses with Tom Bromley

For this week's contest, we're bringing you something a little different: a takeover by Tom Bromley — author, ghostwriter, and instructor for Reedsy's new online novel writing course, a 101-day journey to your first draft. The winner of this week's contest will win an extra special prize: a full scholarship for Tom’s course, plus personal feedback on their winning story. For your chance to receive free tuition (worth $1250) and get feedback from an industry pro, read on! Here's Tom:

One of the common mistakes I notice new writers make is relying on visual details alone to describe scenes. In fact, other senses are often the key ingredients in bringing a setting to life. In her brilliant book A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman says that the use of touch, “by clarifying and adding to the shorthand of the eyes, teaches us that we live in a three-dimensional world.” Using the non-visual senses stops descriptions from feeling like still-life paintings. They’re great, too, for triggering responses: “Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines…Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once.” I’m a big believer in bringing in as many senses as possible when describing: one of my student groups played “Sensory Bingo,” with a “full house” score if all were included!

I’d love to see settings and stories where the beginning is all about a non-visual sense. Start the scene with a different sensory detail and build the description and piece out from there. Remember: the more you can make this detail specific, the stronger it will be. Good luck! — Tom



Special update: The results 🏆

After reviewing the judges' top picks and choosing his winner, here was Tom's feedback on the shortlist and winner he chose, which he has kindly given us permission to share with you all! Here's Tom again:

It’s been such a pleasure reading through the entries to this week’s competition. It’s always revealing to set a literary hare running and see how writers respond and adapt to the same starting points. The breadth and depth of the stories that came back was deeply impressive and it made my job of choosing a winner all the more difficult.

This was a competition where the focus was on the use of the different senses. It’s a difficult skill to get right, but when those details are in place, it really helps to make the writing sing. The use of the word details is particularly important: as so often with writing, the more specific the observation, the more it resonates in the reader’s mind. 

Nina Chyll had a brilliant start with ‘We could smell the war before it dawned over the horizon’. I think the use of a smell as a way in is such a great device and the contrast of details here, everything from ‘the muggy smoke of burning soup’ to washed sheets ‘smelling crisply of starch’ pulled together to capture the scene well.

Hannah Andrews’ The House Always Win began with ‘the low battery cry from a lonely smoke detector’: it’s a start that feels full of foreboding and tension, which is a great way to draw the reader in. Suma Jayachandar’s 1861 also had some wonderful lines, such as ‘the cold air smells of the sea, salt and rebellion’. 

My winner was Danielle Barr’s Whale Song. This was a powerful story, beautifully told. The use of emotion is such an important part of fiction and Danielle began brilliantly with this: ‘Agony broils, but anguish simmers’. The story then used the senses and details to slowly reveal the protagonist’s situation in hospital. 

The writing was sprinkled with wonderful observations throughout. The protagonist recognises one nurse ‘by the sharp antiseptic smell of hand sanitizer mingling with shea butter.’ Another nurse, Bailey, is ‘supposed to wash her hands, but I never hear the thwump thwump of the hand sanitizer foam when she breezes in.’ With just these observations alone, we begin to get a sense of these characters. They are a good example of the big difference that small details can make. 

Well done to all the shortlisted authors and congratulations to Danielle. And thank you to everyone who took part: I hope you enjoyed the prompts and wish you all the best of luck with your writing!

— Tom

If you're interested in hearing more from Tom, and the new How to Write a Novel course, you can learn more here.