The nose knows is a familiar saying that originated in advertising and was even the title of a Seinfeld episode.
The phrase has stuck around because there is a lot of truth to it, especially for writers. Smell bypasses the logical part of the brain and goes straight to emotion and memory, which makes it a powerful storytelling tool.
Today, we use scent as an entry point for our writing prompt that combines place and memory. First, brainstorm scent-based memories. Then choose one item from your list, one place, one moment, and build a focused scene with concrete details.
Please share your work in the comments section below, because we writers learn best by reading each other’s stories.
But whether your nose knows or not, always remember: The only way to do this wrong is to not do it at all!
I had so many entries on the list. One led to another. So hard to choose. The smell of ozone in the air during a thunderstorm, pine trees, the sharp smell of hot metal playground equipment, the smell of cold air when the temp drops to zero or below, and your nostrils stick together, chlorine in pools, dad smelled of Old Spice, and now I do, old car smell, dried, stale sweat on my friends after a day in the sun, sulfur paper mill, sour mash brewery. And there are more…
Oh my gosh, I never realized the wet steel playground equipment was a recognizable smell until you wrote it. My brain knows it exactly, it’s is catalogued inside me, my childhood. . Thanks for refreshing my memory in this way. 🙂
For me, one of the smells that evokes memories for me is the smell of sawdust. That fresh woodsy smell
clung to my dad and his helpers clothing as they came in for coffee or a meal when they were sawing lumber
at the mill close to our house. A special treat occurred when they occasionally sawed into a cedar log. The
fragrance lingered for quite some time. I remember my mother gathering a quart jar of the cedar sawdust
to be used in the house as an air freshener.
I like the smell of sawdust too, Linda! I never knew people collected cedar ones for freshening the air, but that makes good sense, very practical!
The picture on this week’s vlog page reminds me of the many times I’ve delighted in a visit to a feed store in the springtime. I could tell right away if there were chicks for sale. As soon as I walked past the cash registers at the front, the usual smell of new horse tack leather was replaced with a bit of hay, the sweetness of corn meal under warming lamps, and acrid chicken poop! I’d wind my way through the isles, following the sound of soft cheeping. “Cheep, cheep, cheep.” If the down-fuzzy balls of yellow were awake in… Read more »
Thanks for a great memory I had forgotten! Nothing like those fluffy balls of feathers, the peeping when they were awake, and the mealy smell of either their feed or their bedding. Who could resist checking them out?