Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Description

This is topic Description in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by cvgurau (Member # 1345) on :

Do you ever add something in your novel only because you read it someplace else? For example, I’ve never smelled burning flesh, so I don’t know that it’s acrid, but in writing a recent passage, I found myself writing “the acrid smell of burning flesh...”

Is this because it sounds better, or because it sounds realistic or what?

Slightly plagiaristic,
Chris

Posted by srhowen (Member # 462) on :

What--you've never burned dinner? We've all smelled burnt flesh--maybe not human but I think burned animal flesh of any sort can give you a clue.

And we learn about other things through what people say and write. To describe something the way someone else did I don't think is theft--unless they use some unique never heard before descriptions.

Shawn

Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :

When enough people write something a certain way I start to take for granted that it's true. Actually, if people say it often enough I forget where I first heard it and just integrate it into my general store of knowledge. This means that as long as it is a *minor* point in one of my tales I'm just as likely to go ahead and write it the same way everyone else has.

On the other hand, you should have better knowledge of the focus of your story. If your main character is a firefighter who has regular occassion to smell burning flesh, you might want to do better than just assuming everyone knows what they're talking about when they call it "acrid."

Posted by James Maxey (Member # 1335) on :

"Acrid smell of burning flesh" has been used so much it is almost meaningless. I would say that in at least half of all poorly written fiction, "acrid smell" proceeds "burning flesh." If you have a situation in your story where people are on fire, this is not a situation you should squander. It's time to wake the reader up! Catch him in the throat with singed hair and burnt bacon, with melted polyester and boiled urine. If you aren't going to pull out your strongest words to describe the consequences of fire meeting skin, when are you going to use them?

Hope this helps!
James Maxey
www.nobodygetsthegirl.com

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

I understand that burnt flesh and singed hair smell very much the same (and I can tell you from experience that singed hair and burnt teeth--zapped with a laser after having been extracted--definitely do smell the same).

So if burnt flesh really does smell like singed hair, all you have to do is cut off a snip or two of hair and set it on fire.

In my opinion, it's more dry and dusty smelling than acrid. <shrug>

Posted by Nocturne (Member # 1621) on :

Alternatively ask a FireFighter.

I've never associated the word acrid with burnt flesh.

To me the word Acrid brings to mind the smell of Guy Fawkes night, July 4th, Fireworks, shooting ranges. To me it's kind of a burnt gunpowder smell.

Posted by teddyrux (Member # 1595) on :

quote:
acrid: sharp and harsh or unpleasantly pungent in taste or odor

Burnt flesh is unpleasant, but I wouldn't say that it's pungent. Animal flesh and human flesh do smell different. The phrase "the acrid smell of human flesh" doesn't interest the reader, and it's a cliche. You need something that will capture the reader's attention, especially during a scene where someone is burning or is recently burnt.

Getting out of his car, Tim immediately recognized the all to familiar smell. The smell that brought him back to his youth, to the times he spent with his cousin Mark. The smell that made him want to vomit.
Burnt flesh.

I have smelled burn flesh before, and I don't think I could succeed in describing the smell. But, if you describe the characters reaction to it, like I did above, you can leave the adjectives out, and not use a cliche.

Robert

"Moderately better than not bad."

Posted by Doc Brown (Member # 1118) on :

Are Kathleen and I the only ones who took high school chemistry lab? Burning hair makes an awful smell! That's an easy one to test for yourself.

It's not too great a leap to think that burning human bodies would smell like bunring human hair, since most bodies have hair and burning hair has such an overpoweing odor. Even if burning human flesh smelled like a nice ribeye steak on the grill, your nose would never get past the incredible stink of burning hair.

Acrid? Yeah, I'd say that's a pretty good description of burning hair. But reeking, choking, or disgusting might be better.

Posted by Doc Brown (Member # 1118) on :

Getting back to Chris's original subject, yes I rely on other people's descriptions of things I haven't experienced all the time. I would never copy directly, but I believe it's better to read / hear/ view an eyewitness (or even second hand) description before I write my description.

Take the example of spaceflight. I've never done it, but I like to write about it. For research, I've read lots of books by or about astronauts and cosmonauts. Carrying the Fire, Lost Moon, Drangonfly and Liftoff: The Story of America's Adventure in Space are some of the best that come to mind. I've also viewed and acquired as much NASA video footage as I can get.

Tip: while the best EVA footage comes from shuttle missions, the best footage of living in zero G was shot inside Skylab. Find Skylab interior footage and view it if you can. Even the best Hollywood zero gee scenes, like 2001 : a Space Odyssey, Contact, and Apollo 13 won't give you a feel for zero G life the way Skylab will. Neither will footage from the Shuttle, International Space Station, or Mir. The Shuttle carries more people and the ISS is heavier, but Skylab had a great big, open room. The footage is grainy, but awesome!

Technically, Skylab was in microgravity, not zero G, but that doesn't affect the fascinating visuals.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Doc and KDW have a point. A really bad burn doesn't have to involve even really cooking the flesh. Burning human flesh only becomes acrid when you are well past having cooked the flesh and the fats begin to vaporize (at which point it is one of the more acrid types of smoke you can produce--and very difficult to get out). For most situations, the first smell will be that of burning hair, which will be associated with still living (or recently killed) burn victims.

Burning hair doesn't really smell all that bad, taken by itself, but it is very distinctive.

Freefall is just that--freefall.

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

Ah! Okay. I can see that badly burnt as being acrid.

So you could probably approach the same smell by burning hair in oil then?

Hmm. Anyway, I thought I'd add that my high school history teacher was a DUST-OFF pilot (medical evacuation by helicopterin Viet Nam) and he told me once that the most sickening thing he has ever experienced was the sight and smell of burnt flesh.

After high school, I worked for a research team that investigated automobile accidents for the Department of Transportation, and I saw a photograph of an incinerated body. Just the photograph alone was horrifying. I was very glad not to have experienced the smell as well.

I second teddyrux's advice to concentrate on describing the effect something has on the character instead of trying to describe the actual something. You can be much more effective if you focus on the character.

Posted by teddyrux (Member # 1595) on :

Kathleen, I can relate to your high school history teacher. I was in Desert Storm and for about 2 hours I sat 2 feet from a buddy in my unit that was burnt over 90% of his body. That's why I recommended what I did. If you haven't been there, you can't describe it enough to make me believe you have. I feel that if you can show how it affects the character, the reader will care more about the character. Isn't that what we all want? For the readers to careor not care about the people we create as much as we do.

[This message has been edited by teddyrux (edited June 02, 2003).]