Senses

Humans tend to focus a lot on sight - what we see, how it moves, speed, light, or the absence of it. I focus on this sense so much I've more than once forgotten I have other senses.

This dependence on sight is something I notice reflected in my writing and is something that I continuously work on to include each sense and not just one.

Sure, when we experience a strong emotion like anger or fear, our pupils tend to dilate to take in more light to enhance vision, but things happen to our other senses too. Hearing, touch, smell, and even taste can be affected. Sounds can alter or even vanish completely. Smells can intensify or dull to nothing. Attention can shift and narrow, blurring everything around the shrinking circle of focus. Our skin can become more sensitive to touch. Or less.

Our bodies react in such a three-dimensional way that it's easy to miss exactly how much is happening underneath the surface when our mind is focused on other responses.

Studying our emotions is an excellent way to learn how our bodies react and find ways to strengthen our writing. But since it's not always safe nor mentally healthy to set off fear or pain, it's good to remember that the body's physical reaction is based on stress.

Now, it's not like I'm asking you to swap some anger-coaxing with letting a snake free in your bedroom to learn more about how your body reacts to stress, so you can then use this in your writing. Instead, you can get the body to mimic its reaction to stress more naturally, like training.

The fun thing about the human body is that it can't differentiate between the stress we feel when an angry mum chases us, from the stress released at a training session. So the internal reaction and release of hormones are the same, if only at different intensities.

By using controlled techniques for releasing stress, we not only have a more controlled workspace to widen whatever focus we're practicing with these senses and learning to use more than one sense, but we also have more control to study what's happening with our bodies when we do.

Maybe you react by losing your ability to hear, or sound sharpens to another level. Or, maybe trying out a racetrack will erase the outside world until there's nothing else but you and the road. By experiencing these reactions, you can gain valuable insight to enhance how your fictional characters react when they’re fighting the boss or hanging off a cliff.

Get to know your body. Get to know your reactions. And the next time you write that adrenaline-pumping action scene, remember you don't have to stop with what your characters see. They've got a list of awesome senses lined up and waiting for you to explore.