Tag: How to write a description

Using Color in Our Stories

Using colors in our stories

How to write about the sense of sight is just too broad a subject for one post. So I’m focusing on using color in our stories to bring scenes to life that might lie dead if we rely solely on the tried-and-true descriptions using sight. I’ve loved exploring the names of colors, but before I discuss how to add color to our writing, I have to ask …

Does using a lot of colors make sense for your story?

The main character of my teen cozy mystery series is Rae Riley, a twenty-year-old amateur photographer. Because photography is her hobby, it makes sense to mention colors when I write from her first person point of view. It’s something the character would notice, so I can include. To give you an opposite example, fashion is not a hobby of Rae’s. So when she describes characters, she isn’t focused on their clothes unless it makes a definite impression on her.

Examine your point of view characters. Would any of them notice colors? Why? Understanding your characters will help you use colors in their descriptions correctly. But those aren’t the only people you have to understand.

Use colors readers can related to.

Last spring, I made a study of colors. I typed into Google phrases like “shades of brown” and then looked at the many names for different shades of brown. The site where I found the most helpful graphics was “Color Meanings”. Here’s the link for shades of brown.

As I read each name and looked at the color, I jotted down which colors readers would instantly recognize and which ones my character would know. “Coffee”, “caramel”, “cinnamon”, “beige”, and “sand” were all names that would bring an instant mental picture to readers. But others like “ecru”, “bistre”, and “ocher” might force readers to put down my novel to look up what in the world I was talking about. And would a young woman who wasn’t a painter use words like that? So I used names that were both appropriate for readers and my character.

Make the colors fit the genre.

I like to immerse my readers in my settings. But since I write mysteries, I can’t get bogged down in descriptions. If I wrote historical fiction, I might have more space to paint more vivid descriptions. Knowing what readers expect in your genre helps you decide how to write descriptions and employ color.

Here’s an example of how I used colors in to paint the scenes of a Memorial Day picnic at lake in a state park in Ohio.

“Families and groups of friends dotted the imported sand, clusters of wet, deep colors and pastels decorating the drab ground. Rick Carlisle tossed his seven-year-old nephew and namesake Richard into shallow water while his nine-year-old niece Alli paddled on an inflatable, pink swan. Under the picnic shelter on the edge of the beach, Senator Schuster chatted with an elderly man and scooped something from a vivid tangerine bowl. About twenty people milled in and out of the shelter from preschoolers to senior citizens, so it was probably a family gathering, rather than a political one.”

from A Storm of Doubts by JPC Allen

For more tips on writing with the senses, click here.

What books or stories have you read that used color well?

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Using Smell in Our Stories

using smell in our stories

And by using smell in our stories, I don’t mean we should make them stink. (Ha!) But smell and taste are usually the last senses most writers think of including. Taste has obvious limitations for many scenes, but I think the reason I turn to smell last when working on descriptions is because I have such a poor sense of smell. Unless a scent is especially strong, I just don’t notice it.

Scent, Memory, and Crime Writing

Smell triggers memories like no other sense. When I smell cooking onions, I immediately think I’m back at my grandmother’s house. Even if the smell is coming from the basement cafeteria at an elementary school, I still think of grandma. A smokey fire reminds me of the wood burning stove that my grandparents had. Sunscreen, especially when mixed with the scent of bug repellant, sends me back to high school when I attended camp for marching band.

This unique aspect of smell inspires me as a crime writer. What if something tragic happened to a character at a young age, and now that the person is grown up, she can barely remember it? But when she encounters the same unusual odor that she smelled at the time of the tragedy, her memories come into focus.

Or a man is attacked and never saw who it was but did notice a distinct scent about the attacker. Months later, the man meets someone who smells the same way. With only this clue to go on, he begins digging into this person’s background.

Smell and Humor

For some reason, describing revolting smells lends itself to humor. Maybe it’s because of the over-the-top reactions we can create for characters. Like a mother trying to look pleased as her young children set some monstrous concoction in front of her for breakfast on Mother’s Day. Or a family’s reaction when their dog or cat enters the house after an encounter with a skunk. In the short story “Silent But Deadly”, humor writer Patrick F. McManus uses a dog’s inability to digest turkey gravy as the reason a teen breaks up with his girlfriend.

But a warning …

We can go overboard with using smells in our stories. I read a teen novel in which the author used the sense of smell to convey the decrepitude of the building where the characters spent a a lot of time. There were so many revolting smells that it actually turned my stomach.

Unlike sight or sound, which make up the meat of our descriptions, smell is best deployed as a pungent spice. Use it when no other sense will do, or if you want to give a scene an atypical emphasis.

What authors do you know who use smell effectively in their stories?

For more tips on using senses in our stories, click here.

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