No senses, no feelings. Adding every sensory input for a complete experience.

Welcome back to another blog hop, with #OpenBook. Here’s this week’s prompt.

Don’t forget to click the link to see what everyone else has to say on this week’s subject. It’s at the end of my post.

Which of the senses is the hardest for you to include in your writing?

They’re all important.

But it’s easy to focus on how a place looks when you’re building a story and ignore anything else about it. After all, sight is the most obvious of the senses to employ. But to create a truly immersive experience of a world or situation, it’s important to remember that every one of the five senses is operating at the same time. And they all have a place in creating the environment and mood. Each of them needs to be used to create a complete experience.

As I said, I have the habit of concentrating on sight and ignoring the other four.

I’m often guilty of painting a picture while forgetting the fact that there’s more to it than what’s visible.

It’s only when I read my draft (or my editor does) that I realise the inclusion of sounds, smells, and the sensation of touch can enhance any description and add as much to the atmosphere as you want.

Last on my list tends to be taste. It’s good to remember that you can’t have a meal without describing the taste of the food, whether it’s the awful self-heating food packs that appear to be standard fare on spacecraft, or the fine dining on interplanetary cruisers. Even the food served up at the Oort Cloud Café has a texture and flavour all of its own. Telling people about it adds to the richness of the description.

But there’s another sense that’s just as important for the author to describe.

It’s vital when creating an atmosphere. I’m referring to the sixth sense. The characters’ sense of foreboding, or the little voice that tells them things aren’t quite right.

The construction of scenes and the layering of clues can sharpen the need for this sense and build dramatic tension.

If not in the character, at least in the reader.

Ideally, the reader is now shouting at the page, Look out, you fool, can’t you see what’s going to happen? when the character’s sixth sense has failed to read the signs that all is not well.

What do you think about this week’s subject?

Let me know by leaving me a comment.

While you’re here, please click the InLinkz link to check out what my fellow writers have to say about this week’s topic.

I’ll be back with another post on Thursday. See you then. Meanwhile, have a great week.

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