Hey, everybody.
This week, I thought I’d start a new series, which I’m calling “The Writing Prompt Workshop.”
I’m finally about to wrap up the outline for my rewrite of Memory, my 2015 NaNoWriMo novel, I figured now was the time to get a little practice in.
Also, I’m just wildly pumped to actually write prose again instead of editing and outlining. So pumped, in fact, that I’m bringing my habit of making up weird writing prompts to House of Error.
And for the very first prompt of the series, I’m going to try to use one sense to elicit a reaction from a different sense entirely, which I’m calling “The Sensory Relay Prompt.” Just as an example, it’s like trying to describe a smell that makes a reader feel cold. I have no idea how successful I’ll be, but I’ll do my best not to cheat.
Also, this will definitely be longer on my end than it will be for you, because I’m only going to post what I feel are successes, and those successes are probably just going to be a sentence or two each. Whatever snippets I post will have the senses I tried to evoke beneath them.
That said, here we go.
The sky was a muted grey–a mottled, old canvas, crossed and circled by shadow-dark seagulls. He barely heard them over the crash of waves, spray hissing as it rode the wind.
Sight to Touch.
Sound to Touch.
We’re talking temperature here. Not sure if that’s too easy, but hey, it’s a start.
—
The slow sway of the leaves smelled like rain. Like soil made tender by a storm.
Smell to Touch. Trying to evoke my favorite kind of cool, Spring breeze.
Specifically though, I wanted to give the sense of stepping on soft soil with the second sentence. Incredibly hard to do without saying “soft.” Definitely cheating in the end with “tender,” but man, I must’ve written “that gives under foot” ten different ways.
Okay. Enough nature talk. And enough “[Whatever] to Touch.”
—
She slipped immediately, feet sliding until she splashed into the stream burbling through the sewer access pipe. It was so warm.
“Godammit.”
“You okay?”
She looked up at him. “How could I be?” And then she was doing her best to find some part of the pipe that her hands didn’t slip away from.
Touch / Sound to Smell.
—
But how the bread looked didn’t matter the moment it reached his tongue. It was almost sharp, poking his pallet until he maneuvered it. The only thing that made it food was a whisper of yeast, so light on his tongue that he wasn’t sure if he was smelling it or tasting it.
But then, he was hanging onto that phantasmal almost-flavor, because when he bit into it, it crumbled into a gravel so course his jaw stuttered.
Taste / Touch to Sound? Totally reliant on that last sentence to maybe invoke an insane crunch, but I . . . definitely got carried away. Sorry not sorry; I just love describing bad food. I do not know why—I’m just fucking owning it.
—
Maintenance waxed the floor with something that was sharp in her nose. A chemical tinge she blew back out instinctively, so tacky that it refused to be exhaled.
A sterile sheen that clung to her heels with every step.
Smell / Touch to Sound.
Man, Smell to Sound is the hardest thing in the world to convey. It seriously took me an hour to get those three sentences, and I wound up cheating in the end.
—
The paper smell hit him first as the bag settled on his head, holes–cut by a rounded scissors–not quite lining up with his eyes, no matter how hard he fidgeted. At one point, he tried whipping it around and down with a quick roll and snap of his head, but when it settled, the eyes had switched, left oval in place, right oval somewhere up at his eyebrow–only his own breath rushing out of both.
Smell / Touch to Sound.
Had to try for Smell to Sound one last time, but it is next level rough.
~~~
Okay. Well, that was extremely fun for me and I immediately kind of love this series.
Thanks for joining me. I know this may have been a weird, short post, but I highly recommend trying this Sensory Relay Prompt as a way to flex the descriptive muscles.
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But either way, be safe, get vaccinated, and to all the moms out there, Happy Mother’s Day!
House of Error 