Wake up and smell the coffee:

Today's Salad Bowl Saturday guest blogger is author Terry Shames who talks about the often-neglect sense in writing.

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“The coffee bubbled, filling the kitchen with its rich, earthy scent.”

The One I left Behind, Jennifer McMahon

And the food:

“The fried corn fragrance of pupusas wafted toward them, mingling with the smoky aroma of a roasting chicken.” Blood of Paradise, David Corbett

“The Halloran house always smelled of strong foods—onions, cabbage, hamburger--…The Most Dangerous Thing, Laura Lippman

And the bookstore:

 “…the familiar and distinctive aroma of once-loved books…the musty smell of paper and dust like incense, a welcoming cloud of calm and serenity.” The Bookseller, Mark Pryor

And death:

“In the rapidly warming air, the scent of death had blossomed. It was worse than spoiled milk or rotting meat or piles of dead fish lying out in the sun…though some inventive combination of the three may have come close to matching the putrid smell.” The Cutting Season, Attica Locke

Scientists don’t know what part of the molecule actually lights up the sense of smell. But like sight, sound and touch, smells can evoke a world of memory and meaning. It is the sense that most quickly hurls us into a different time and space. A whiff of the floral shaving cream your father used can conjure  a memory of watching him shave before he went off to work—and never returned. The sharp smell of metal in the hot sun can throw you back to when a hot metal slide burned the backs of your legs as a child. The pungent smell of pine can take you back to the first time you backpacked in the mountains—and got lost and had to spend the night out, terrified that you couldn’t find your way back to camp.

As evocative as our sense of smell can be, it’s essential in crime writing. A detective stepping into a room where a fresh body lies smells something completely different from one investigating a body that has been discovered only after several weeks of getting ripe. The smell of sweat on a fearful victim, perfume on a sexy woman in a noir novel, smoke in a burned out murder scene—can evoke as much as sense of “being there” as descriptions of sights and sounds.

It’s hard to find fresh ways of describing something so fundamental as smell. Countless writers of crime fiction have described the smell of blood as “coppery.” That seems so accurate that it’s hard to come up with a new adjective, but to use copper borders on cliché.

However, it isn’t necessary to actually describe a smell. In the first three passages quoted above, the writers simply state the fact of the smell, inviting the reader to fill in from personal experience.

But a smell gives such immediacy to a scene that it seems worthwhile to come up with new images, as in the second two passages.

When editing your book, be sure you sprinkle that often overlooked, vital sense in your scenes as a way of bringing the reader into the world you’ve created.

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Terry Shames’ debut novel is due July 9, 2013 from Seventh Street Books.  Set in her native Texas, A Killing at Cotton Hill features ex-chief of police Samuel Craddock, reputed to be the best lawman the town of Jarrett Creek ever had. Terry lives in Berkeley, CA with her husband and two rowdy terriers. Read more at www.Terryshames.com. Drop in on her blog with The LadyKillers on alternate Wednesdays.