: Re: How do I define smells I have never experienced? I am a lifelong writer, who was also born without an ability to smell. I have been trained to engage the reader by applying the five senses,

@RJPawlick285

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What can I do, beyond just using words like "good, bad, strong," or "sweet," words that carry over into other senses, to give readers an experience like they are there?

Some great answers already given, but I just wanted to add a couple tidbits. First, even those who can smell fine often have a hard time describing smells. Smells are much more abstract than sights, physical feelings, even sounds. So it wouldn't be a stretch for your characters to sometimes have a hard time describing a smell beyond abstractions (which Amai gave some great examples for, like "metallic", "earthy", etc.).

In addition to that, I think one of the most fundamental aspects of smell is that it's a very emotional sense. It's often tied to nostalgia, yes, but even a smell you've never smelled before can elicit an emotional response. Disgust, pleasure, intrigue... in a way, I would almost say that smell is emotion. Like emotion, it's intangible (almost ethereal), often fleeting, and you don't always have control over how and when it affects you.

I think the closest sense to smell is actually hearing, not taste. Just like a song can lift you up into euphoria or plunge you into despair by playing on memories, hopes, fears, etc., smell can do the same.

That's not to say smell is always heavily emotional. But I do think it's almost always somewhat emotional. I very rarely notice a smell without attaching some response to it -- ranging from "That smells nice" to euphoric nostalgia on the good side, and from "That smells odd" to immediate repulsion on the bad side.

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