The Art of Writing: How to Write Bestselling Novels

Incorporating All the Senses (A Deep POV Skill)

Have you ever started reading a story that feels flat? It doesn't really draw you in because you don't feel truly connected to the character?

Well, there could be several reasons for that, but one of those possible reasons very important. The writer may not have used all of the senses to really seat you into the head and body of the character. After all, you have sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing, right? You ever have hunches that could be classified as a sixth sense, like getting a bad feeling about a situation. We don't want to get too much into emotions in this chapter, but exploring how to use the fives, or maybe six, senses is a great way to learn to pull your readers deep into your character.

Let's start off with something simple--waking up.

When you first wake, you usually hear something like maybe the A/C if it's summertime or the heater if it's winter time. You might even be woken by the smell of coffee brewing in the kitchen. Then you might open your eyes and see the ceiling or who just black because your face is buried in your pillow.

Incorporating the senses is what brings multiple dimensions to the character and the story that your entire body can get into. This naturally creates more engagement for the reader and more depth to your story.

This will be a very short chapter because there really isn't much to tell. And with very little work, you can get good at this. It's more about repeating the skill throughout your book to get used to using it.

Here are some examples:

Without Senses
I woke, wondering where I was. The room was dark, the window shades pulled tight. When I stood and turned around, something hit me in the head.

With Senses
I roused from sleep to the sound of popping grease coming from somewhere. The smell of bacon hung thick in the air. A chill swept across my skin bringing goosebumps. I opened my eyes and stretched, but when I turned around, a huge, blubbery redneck slammed his fist into my head.

So, which gets you more into the story? Which creates more depth for you? Which gives you a deeper experience, placing you more in the head and body of the character? Anyone with half a brain will pick the second one.

What's a good method for incorporating this technique you ask? It's simple.

Just close your eyes and pretend you're the character waking up. What would you do? What's happening in the scene that you could sense if you were there? Does your character have good intuition, causing her to get goosebumps that tells her something's off? Just go through the motions of what you'd do if you were the character and write that.

If that's not good enough, go get in your bed right now and lay down in a position that you often find yourself waking up in. Now, go through the motions of waking up, but do them slowly, paying attention to every little detail, everything you notice with your sense. Then go write down those things. That was just an exercise.

Now, do it again, but this time, imagine you're in the location where your character is. Imagine what she'd smell or see or hear, etc. Sight usually is the one thing writers use plenty of. It's the smells, the sounds, and touch (or bodily sensations) that get overlooked most of the time, and yet are vital to a solid deep POV experience for the reader.

That's all there is to it. You're just immersing yourself in your character's body so the reader gets immersed in it, as well.

Now go through all of one of your books using this skill wherever you feel it's necessary. You want a lot of the senses used throughout your book to really ground the reader in the characters. However, you don't want to overdo it. Make sure it's used plenty and in just the right spots, but not in every spot, if that makes sense. Then, be sure to write some new scenes using the skill. After you've used the skill like that for a week or two, it'll be a completely natural part of how you write.

I will add this one caveat, though: in your first draft, you need to write it as quickly as possible, so you don't want to spend hardly any time on these things unless you can do it pretty quickly and naturally. On your second or third drafts, after your outline is pretty much set in stone, you can start adding in these senses. I naturally write them in my first draft now and that actually slows me down. I used to write a lot faster before, so I need to take my own advice here and add them in toward the third draft. Think about it like this--if you spend tons of time putting them into the first draft only to find out that you've decided to cut several scenes when you reconfigured the story for the second draft, you've wasted a lot of time. Better to wait until the story and its outline are fairly close to set in stone before you do this. Honestly, that should be after around the third draft. Choose wisely so you can write efficiently.

Good luck, and as always, if you liked this chapter, please vote for it!