Sunday, September 6, 2009

The Drive-Through Window


Scents:
  • Fried Food
  • Car Exhaust
  • Money
Sights:
  • Drive-up menu
  • Order speaker
  • Cars ahead and behind
  • Pay and pick-up windows
  • Uniformed, surly teenager behind the glass
  • Bags of food
  • Money changing hands
  • Overly red mulch and landscaping
  • Fake stucco walls
  • Service entry
  • Dumpster
  • Sun reflecting on dashboard
  • Posters in windows advertising specials
Feel:
  • Dollar bills and change in hand
  • Crinkling of paper or plastic bag
  • Heat of a freshly made burger through the foil wrapper
  • Snap of crisp french fries
  • Chill and condensation from a drink cup against your palm
Sounds:
  • Traffic
  • Radio humming low
  • Employee squawking from order box
  • Other orders booming through speaker
  • Static in order speaker
  • Idling of car engine
  • Commotion inside as you pull up to the window
  • Russle of paper bags as you check your order
  • Squeak of a straw as it slides into the plastic top

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Movie Theater (Outside/Lobby)

Scents:
  • Cigarette smoke
  • Carpet shampoo
  • Chemical scent of cleaners
  • Faint salty, greasy, buttery aromas from the concession stand
Sights:
  • Lighted theater sign
  • Black and white or electronic marquee outside
  • Sea of cars in the parking lot
  • Now showing and Coming Soon posters along the exterior walls
  • People smoking outside
  • Box office (sometimes outside)
  • Metal framed glass doors leading into the lobby
  • Groups of people standing near the box office choosing what movie to see
  • Roped off ticket line
  • More movie posters and standing cut-outs inside
  • Electronic ticket kiosk
  • TVs playing movie previews
  • Uniformed employees
  • Manager in a suit with a flashlight or walkie-talkie
  • Arcade or game room
  • Seating area with benches or tables and chairs
Feel:
  • Concrete and pavement under foot outside
  • Brushed metal handle on exterior doors
  • Thick cardstock tickets
Sounds:
  • Chatter outside and in the library
  • Footsteps
  • Electronic buzz of tickets being printed
  • Muffled sounds of arcade games and previews playing around the lobby

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Early Morning, New Orleans' French Quarter


Scents:
  • Wet asphalt
  • Stale beer
  • On Bourbon Street? Vomit
  • Coffee and beignets from open doorways
  • Pralines baking
  • Oyster shells
Sounds:
  • Sidewalks being hosed down and cleaned for the day
  • Garbage trucks and delivery vans making frequent stops
  • Shouts from vendors at the market
  • Ships' horns from the Mississippi
  • Quiet conversation of early-rising tourists
  • Clatter of the streetcar that runs along the river
  • Soft jazz drifting out of open doorways
Sights:
  • Shopkeepers taking out trash and sweeping the sidewalks in front of their businesses
  • Beer trucks stopped in front of bars, drivers delivering dolly loads of beer
  • Bakery trucks, delivery huge fresh French loaves for po-boys
  • Sunlight glistening on the wet streets
  • The red riverside streetcar behind the market
  • French Market vendors putting out vegetables and trinkets to sell
  • Clean, white-shoed tourists dabbing powdered sugar off their shirts and sipping cafe au lait at Cafe du Monde
  • Carriage drivers lining up their mules and carriages along Decatur, waiting for fares
  • Artists arranging paintings along the wrought-iron fence around Jackson Square
  • Tarot readers doing the same
Tastes:
  • Hot crisp beignets covered in powdered sugar
  • The tang on the air from the river
  • Smooth chicory coffee laced with milk

Friday, August 28, 2009

Public Restroom

Place: Public Restroom
Scents:
  • Musty or damp odors
  • Acidic smell of urine
  • Disinfectant
  • Toilet bowl/urinal cakes
  • Wet or moldering paper towels
  • Clean or floral air-freshener
  • Baby wipes
  • Dirty diapers
  • Powdery, musky or clean-smelling soap
  • Burning dust on the electric hand dryer
Sights:
  • Large metal or wooden swinging door/Somewhat clinical door with an angular metal handle
  • Row of metal/plastic colored stalls/Single freestanding white or black & white toilet
  • Rust spots/Paint chipping on stall doors
  • Carved, scrawled or even spray painted graffiti
  • Peeling wallpaper
  • Tile floors
  • Counter top with several sinks/Single white sink with exposed piping
  • Plastic wall mounted or metal in sink soap dispenser
  • One huge mirror or smaller mirrors for individual sinks
  • Hole in the sink, metal under the paper towel dispenser or large plastic trash cans
  • Paper towels and other garbage on the floor
  • Chrome faucets/knobs/toilet handles
  • Boxy paper towel dispensers
  • White and chrome manual or automatic hand dryers
  • Oblong metal tampon and condom dispenser with coin slot and turn knob
  • Pull down baby changing table
  • Simple metal or plastic enclosed toilet paper holder
  • Metal toilet seat cover dispenser
Feel:
  • Heaviness of swinging door
  • Cold metal stall door/toilet or urinal handle/sink knobs
  • Chilly plastic or porcelain toilet seat
  • Light papery toilet seat covers
  • Stickiness of the tile floor
  • Damp or wet countertop/sink
  • Rough brown paper towels
  • Warm air through fingers from the hand dryer
Sounds:
  • Thud of someone hitting the swinging door as they enter the bathroom
  • Whir of the air conditioner
  • Bang of stalls closing
  • Squeaky stall hinges
  • Click of door/stall locks
  • Dripping water from a faucet
  • Puff of automatic air-freshener
  • Tinkling on porcelain
  • Clanking of toilet seat against the rim on sitting down
  • Flush of toilets/urinals
  • Rattle of toilet paper roll spinning
  • Compression of the soap dispenser plunger
  • Puff of air before the automatic faucet cuts on
  • Creak of sink knobs
  • Stream of water from the faucet
  • Gurgle of the drain
  • Buzz of automatic paper towel dispenser
  • Clunk of paper towel roll shifting inside a manual dispenser
  • Tearing of paper towels from the roll
  • Pop of the metal button on the electric hand dryer
  • Blast of air from electric hand dryer
  • Noises from the other (men’s or women’s) bathroom
Image credits: Unknown, Holy Shizzle by m_lavigne

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Swamping the Senses


Place: Marshy wetlands (in this case, near the mouth of the Mississippi River)

 
Scents:
  • The tang of saltwater
  • Fish
Sights:
  • Brown pelicans perching on ragged stumps
  • Seagulls flying overhead
  • Abandoned fishing boats
  • Buoys
  • Sunlight glinting off the water; stormclouds gathering over the water
  • Ships heading toward the wide mouth of the river
  • Brown water turning to blue as it flows from the river
  • Marsh grasses blowing in the breeze
  • Flat earth and water, as far as the eye can see
Feel:
  • Steady winds blowing in from the water with nothing to slow them down
  • Heat shimmering off the water
  • Warmth of the sun
Sounds:
  • Gulls and other birds
  • Water lapping against the land
  • The wind blowing over the marsh grasses
  • Fish splashing
  • Ships' horns
Tastes:
  • Salty tang on the breeze

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

About Scentsabilities

Sense & expression…. That's what we're all about here at Scentsabilities. Our goal is to help you transform words into wisps of scent rising from the page, surround your readers with sounds and colors, and plunge them head-first into the world you're creating.


If you've come here looking for plug-and-play descriptions, you're in the wrong place. We're not going to write it for you, but we will give you a jumpstart. Everyone needs one occasionally. Just days ago, I needed one.

After discussing a single smell with my critique partner for more than 30 minutes we realized something. Two minds working together, no matter how brilliant, can’t come up with all the options. In fact, just coming up with a good handful of viable ones in half an hour was tough. Of course that meant that there was a possibility that the one descriptor that could part the clouds, turn on the heavenly spotlight and make my deathless prose sing like a choir of angels had been overlooked.

Unacceptable.

So our conversation turned to more practical endeavors. Was there a resource we could go to in our quest for the illusive descriptor? Yes! A familiar desktop icon, which would be tattered and well-worn if it weren’t virtual, led me to the internet. A few keywords in the search block and I’d be home free. Alas, I was wrong.

There was no shortage of results, but if they weren’t completely off they were lacking. A few fragrances on a perfume website, sounds listed as part of an article…. It was incredibly frustrating to spend precious moments that I could have spent writing sifting through the junk in search of a gem.

Then and there my partner and I made a pact. We launched an investigation. We committed to doing the research. We’re going to pull on past experience and do the legwork to compile a sensory encyclopedia.

This study of life and the world around us will detail settings, shapes, textures, colors and much more. Anything we can think of that needs describing is fair game. But the world is wide my friends and if we don’t post it then it’s up to you to suggest it.

Something new will be posted four times a week and I can assure you that existing posts will be updated often. Those posts will then be organized in some semi-sane fashion off to the side of the blog. Savvy?

There will probably be exceptions. Vacations, computer death, family emergencies, Ice Road Truckers marathons… You understand I’m sure. However, we are serious about making this into the best possible resource it can be and will put in the time to make it one no one can or should live without.

Image credits: The Five Senses by born-posthumously