Medical rooms and hospitals are safe, infantalising, dangerous, creepy, life-saving, traumatising places, and I offer them here as examples of what Foucault called ‘ heterotopia ‘. Remove distractions.
Be as specific as you can.
Hannibal Lecter would have a very different emotional response to a gory sequence than, say, Buddy the Elf.
A smell can bring out an emotional response or force us to recall memories in a way that other senses can’t.
Phantom perfume or cologne, burning smells, pipe or cigarette smoke, mildew, rot, dank, rusty or metallic smells, wet wood and stone, rancid breath, yeasty beer smell, food, dust, dry rot, rat/mice feces, urine.
.
To describe a smell, take some time to sit with it and jot down any words, images, or emotions that come to mind when you’re smelling it.
I stared at a half eaten bowl of peaches, each one swimming in it’s own puddle of syrup.
.
Description: This revision technique is especially helpful in eliciting rich details (and the students will love the length it adds to a draft).
Words to describe the smell of alcohol in writing.
There’s a grim camaraderie in the hall and elevators.
So though I am here, you are still the one who keeps me strong.
.
Consider the sound as well as.
Scent is an incredibly evocative detail to explore in creative writing, but too often writers neglect the possibilities that scent descriptions open up in terms of establishing.
When you’re done, pick the three or four of the most interesting things you noticed, and use those to write a description of the building.