If you had to choose, which amongst the range of human senses is the one most likely to dredge up memories (good or bad) in that RAM called your brain?
There are five basic senses: sound, smell, touch, sight, and taste.
Here’s my example of a good memory, evoked by music:
Hearing CCR on the radio transports me right back to my carefree college days in southern California when I didn’t have a worry in the world. When the studying was done, my friends and I would pile into a light blue ‘60s-something VW bug–it’s amazing how many teenagers you can stuff into one of those–and head for the beach for a little body surfing.
The character-building skill of using the five senses to tell a story is an important one to develop, and is much-discussed here at TKZ.
When I wrote No Tomorrows, I had to dig deep into my fear of losing a child. My parents lost two, my younger brother to a traffic accident and my younger sister, five years later, to suicide. There are sights and sounds in my world today that bring those dreadful memories careening back into my consciousness.
In No Tomorrows, Annie faces that same fear when she loses track of her small daughter in the park. As I wrote the scene, I put her shoes on my feet as she raced around the park, frantically calling Nora’s name. It was a difficult section for me to write. But as I relived my memories and looked my own fear of the death of a child square in its ugly face, Annie became flesh and blood, and in a way her fear took the teeth out of my own monsters.
Your turn! Which of the five senses takes you back in time, or causes you to remember a person from your past, or evokes a feeling of comfort?
How deep will you go into your own RAM to create a character who will resonate with your reader?
As a reader, which sense/emotion connects you to the story/character the quickest?
A glass of wine and listening to my favorite songs from the sixties and seventies will have me wondering where the years have gone. I’ll remember that first boyfriend and wonder what he looks like…until I look him up on Linkedin or FB…
The smell of a spruce tree at Christmas will take me back to sitting on the sofa with the Christmas tree lights shining on the few wrapped presents under it…wondering if that square box is the camera I’ve been wanting for so long…memories like this often show up in my characters.
Hi Patricia…
…wondering if that square box is the camera I’ve been wanting for so long…
I received that square box for Christmas when I was 12! And after that, I got into trouble sooo many times for sneaking around with it and taking pictures of folks without their say-so.
I wish I still had it. It was the kind you looked “down into” to see the frame you’d get.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great Thanksgiving!
Oh, wow! I was 12 too and it was the same camera!
😯
Brownie, I think?
https://a.co/d/fM0Nu8s
The sense of smell is linked closely to memories. Opening a bag of birdseed takes my back to my great aunt’s chicken farm.
If you want to get technical, smell is directly linked to memory because the brain’s olfactory bulb, which processes smells, has direct connections to the amygdala and hippocampus, the areas responsible for emotion and memory.
Hi Terry!
I have a related memory…related to chickens, that is. My grandmother had dozens and dozens of chickens–and a willow switch about 15 feet long. What does one have to do with the other?
If she caught us bedeviling her chickens, she’d reach out and touch us! 🙂
I remember reading something about the sense of smell and memories–thanks for that reminder.
Have a great weekend, and Happy Thanksgiving!
One of Two
Smell
I think it is Night by Halston. It is a strong scent. If it is your favorite, sorry. It reminds me of my youth as an usher at the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was Tom’s favorite. It reminds me of him.
Hi Alan…
Not familiar with that scent. It’s interesting, though, that it’s called Night…and reminds you of ushering at the Rocky Horror Picture Show. There’s a connection there, I think.
Have a great day!
Alan, I loved Halston Night and was sorry when they quit making it but to this day I’ve never seen RHPS.
A Song:
Music is powerful. I graduated college in 1983. In those days you would gather in a communal space to watch TV. I was in the lounge waiting for “Hill Street Blues” to start. There was a blurb about the lead story on the news right after “Hill Street Blues”. That blurb was that a high school classmate died of a heart attack at 19. Then the theme started to play.
I still think about you Spider. Even though it has been a long time.
Oh wow, Alan!
That must’ve been hard for you and your friends. Much too young to have died like that! 🙁
Thanks for stopping by this morning, and have a great day…
Love this time to reflect on my happiest childhood memories which revolve around the times I spent at my great-aunt’s and uncle’s farm in Georgia. The sense of touch evokes the strongest emotion.
My cousins and I would run races on the dirt roads, and I remember the warmth of the Earth under my bare feet. Several of us would get on Old Dan, the giant gelding my uncle owned, and I still recall the softness of Dan’s sides against my legs. I would usually be in the middle, hugging one cousin in front of me while my cousin Joan sat behind me, gripping me around the waist in terror even though we could never get Dan to do anything faster than a walk.
Putting a cricket on a hook and taking a flapping fish off. Skinning my knees while trying to keep up with the boys climbing trees. All wonderful memories.
Good morning, Kay!
What wonderful childhood memories! I bet these somehow feed into your writing…
When I see a tumbleweed, I remember my gramma’s chicken farm (the gramma with the 15 foot willow switch, mentioned in another comment).
Why? Because in the fall when the water was drained out of the main canal running through her property, the wind would blow the tumbleweeds into it. We would put on overcoats and gloves and go out and jump into it–sometimes we’d push each into it. The canal was about 10-12 feet deep, so we’d sink down into the tumbleweeds and have to dig ourselves out. It was a blast!
Thanks for sharing this morning, and have a happy Thanksgiving!
Marcel Proust’s massive book series, À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, started with the smell of a specific type of cookie from his childhood. In the creation process, I’m very cerebral so I have to go back during the rewrite to put in all the senses and go heavier on the feels. Weird for someone who mainly wrote romance.
Hi Marilyn…
The smell of chocolate chip cookies (homemade, of course!) brings back memories of my mother. Hers were the best. She also made homemade doughnuts, and there’s a TV commercial which features the making of doughnuts–don’t know why–but that brings back fond, comforting memories.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Smell was the most evocative sense for me but, after having Covid, that no longer works. I have to deliberately think back to remember certain smells that trigger memories.
Thanksgiving turkey, barbecued meat, and the Boston baked beans my friend’s mother made from scratch are delicious memories.
Excuse me, I need to get a snack.
Thanks for a thought-provoking post, Deb.
Hi Debbie–I promise not to interrupt your snack for very long! 🤡
The food! Especially the Boston baked beans…I haven’t had that on my plate for way too long.
I’ve lost some of my hearing, so I have to turn CCR up, but I guess you can’t turn up your nose, right? 🥲
Thanks for weighing in on this topic, and I hope you have a great Thanksgiving, my friend.