#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2026.03.17 —What's an experience or sensation you've struggled to convey to a reader?
First an analogy: It may or may not be true how many words there exists in the Inuit language for snow, but describing living in a constant whiteout in English when nuance matters would be crazy making.
For me, the characters who populate my reluctance series of stories live with constant heat. It is rarely dry heat. It can become humid quickly and sometimes so hot and humid that it can kill by making it impossible to cool oneself by perspiring. Describing heat and humidity is not what's wanting. What is wanting is describing the smell, or shall we say odor, of living amongst fellow humans who constantly sweat. Masking it is something that's practically impossible, which leads to tolerance and even preferences we'd consider alien.
There's a lot a person can learn from scents. You can glean clues to activities a person has recently performed, what they've eaten (especially if you like it), or how old they really are. You can recognize others, as well as sickness. But how do you describe the spectrum? How do you keep from grossing out readers who come from a world of deodorant, where accidental body odor can get you ostracized?
It's a struggle at times, especially when the protagonist who narrates in first person is completely uncensored and TMI at times. Thankfully, since I write only what the protagonist notices—and she doesn't notice ordinary everyday things or comment one what she's previously commented upon—the need for maintaining the aromatic ambiance is not constant. Once "trained," the reader ought being doing that for me. 😋
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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