Texturing Your Novel

Several years ago, I had the great fortune to listen to a workshop by Kristin Hannah called Texturing Your Novel. She demonstrated how to take a good scene from a book and make it sparkle by using the five senses and by “upgrading” the language of the text. She is a true master, and I’ll admit to being spellbound over one of her recent books The Things We Do for Love. But it wasn’t the plot or characters that truly grabbed me (though I couldn’t put it down!–not unlike Julie Cohen’s recent books). No, it was her way of texturing the prose, of making it come to life.

She describes a character, the heroine’s mother, in terms of smell. The character smells like Aquanet and drugstore perfume. The writer in me practically squealed–Oooh! Good one! Because it goes beyond scent and moves into who the woman is. She’s a woman who cares about her appearance, but isn’t willing to spend too much money. Bam! Two scents, and she nailed the character. I am in awe.

But translating this into historical romance is tough. Truly, what else is a medieval knight going to smell like, but horse manure and sweat? Blech. Sensory detail is such a powerful element to good writing, and yet I have to balance it with reality. I love working with double-meanings, though. For example–instead of describing something in terms of one sense, I try to hit it on two levels. The color gray can be steel (strength), silver (sensual), cloudy (mysterious), mist-filled (haunting), or my favorite, the color of a gun (violent). Obviously, you can’t use the last one in an early medieval period, but you can play around.

A friend of mine, Suzanne McMinn picked up paint sample cards at a hardware store to get more colors for her books. I love that idea, though it’s awfully tempting to get silly with it. You know, the hero with jetstream eyes and so on.

Anyway, I’m almost at the halfway point of my new book and I’m feeling the need to step back and see where I am. Time for texturizing. Of course, I’ll still need to do a second and third draft (it seems to be my pattern), but this will give my subconscious a chance to process everything. I think I need a kiss in there. It’s a romance novel, I’m on page 147, and they haven’t kissed. What’s wrong with this picture? Of course, the true question is–do they really need to? Are they ready for that? I’ll have to go back and see how it’s playing out.

Which authors do you love, who do a great job of bringing their “world” to life?