Flavor Your Writing

To flavor and spice up writing, add tastes, scents. textures and sounds.  This will draw the reader into the world you're creating.

Make a list of your five favorites in each category.

Examples:

Tastes: sweet pepper sauce on chicken, dill pickles, cinnamon toast, tapioca pudding, pineapple slices

Scents: lavender, tuberose, peppermint, wet earth,  smoke

Textures:  silk, corduroy,  wood grain,  pebbled shore,  bubbled bath water

Sounds: Shrieks and shouts, mellow saxophone, piano chords, birdsong, waltzes

Sights:  apricot ribbon of sunset,   rain splatters on leaves,  silhouettes on pavement,  smiles of strangers,  cumulous clouds


After you've listed five for each category, use one of each and flow into the next list. Create sentences. Let the words trigger ideas and attract others.

From my list:

Sweet pepper sauce delights lavender while silk shrieks as rain splatters on leaves.  Dill pickles invite tuberoses to tea.  The silk of a mellow saxophone mimics smiles of strangers.  Oh the tapioca pudding has spilled on the wet earth.  The pebbled shore sounds like piano chords dancing in cumulous clouds.

Keep going and let your mind make connections and contrasts.