How to #Connect with Others Using the #FiveSenses
https://gretchenrubin.com/articles/connect-using-the-five-senses/
#friendship #relationships

30 Ways to Boost #Creativity Using the #FiveSenses
https://gretchenrubin.com/articles/ways-to-boost-creativity/
#happiness #growth

I've been much too shy so far to even share a link to my self-published anthology, Falling Into The Five Senses.

But today's a good day, so here it is:
https://www.amazon.com/Falling-into-Five-Senses-Anthology-ebook/dp/B07ZSWSKSK/

It's a collection of short stories
5 senses
4 authors
3 continents
2 editors
1 antho

#SelfPublished #IndieAuthor #ShortStories #Anthology #FiveSenses #CreativeWriting

Here's some #writingadvice: Characters in a #story must interact with the place a #scene is set in.

All too often, I've read the work of aspiring authors and felt like the story was simply talking heads. Nothing more than a script. The setting had all the dimension of a matte painting, and served only as a #background. It's a newbie error to not have your #characters interact with their surroundings.

#Conflict is something that gets pounded into our head from the instant we first let someone read our work. Conflict occurs when characters interact with one another. A "sense of place" requires your characters to interact with their environment, to do something. It's the difference between talking to a friend on the phone in contrast to talking with a friend while shopping together.

I did a lot of thinking about this because I added many of these interactions while revising the initial draft of a chapter. It's always best to avoid anything that causes you to exit the zone, to stop writing. Writing dialog and action in this case was most important. Nevertheless, some of the most interesting stuff happened when I added the environmentals.

Briefly, my character is annoyed as she's leaving a bakery, feeling stood up. Another male acquaintance shows up. He blocks the doorway. Another patron stops confused just outside. She almost runs into the friend and briefly thinks he smells of cinnamon. She likes cinnamon and has a chance to smile in a way the acquaintance misinterprets. She remembers she's in a bakery, listing cinnamon, butter, and yeast smells, and chides herself. She further remembers and returns to the counter to pick up her pastry box, seeing it wrapped with twine by the baker. The acquaintance puts his arm around her shoulders. #BeingThere, in this case, in a bakery.

Even walking on the street is an opportunity to interact, to get crowded into a boxy newspaper rack, to walk around slow pedestrians into the street putting a foot into the wet gutter, to smell where a dog has recently been, to wait for a light to turn green at a crosswalk while looking nervously at a watch, or to wave to a neighbor while talking to a companion.

Even a meal is an opportunity to clatter silverware against a plate, to gesture with a drink in hand to eject liquid to avoid or to apologize about, or to wipe mustard off of a chin that might be your character's, a boyfriend's, and a child's.

#setTheScene
#interactions
#fivesenses

Here's #writingadvice: Include the five senses in your fiction or dramatizations of history. #PoulAnderson , an #SF legend, gave this advice at a convention I attended, saying to add at least one sense per paragraph. Every paragraph might be overkill, but why not try? When I revise a draft, I always look at each paragraph for opportunities.

This wonderful #writingprompt post (https://eldritch.cafe/@oneoveralpha@chinwag.org/109470941337849608) asked us to "Describe the sound of rain," presumably without the word rain. So... I did so!

I realized swiftly that the experience of rain encompasses more than just sound. There's the very special smell you notice, with the non-literary name of #petrichor. There's electricity, which you smell as ozone, maybe feel as the tiny hairs on your skin raise, or see as a flash of lightning. The drops spatter on the pavement and darken it in spots. You feel them blow into your eyes—or may drip down your cheeks and neck like the tears of dozens of sad ghosts.

Do you get the idea? I #challenge you to write something using the concept. Use the hashtag #fivesenses and reply to this post.

Thank you, @oneoveralpha

©Tara Shannon, 2022
#rabbitandbear #grounding #fivesenses #anxiety #calm #mentalhealth #selfcare