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Turning Real Life Into Words On The Page

10/28/2022

0 Comments

 
       ​Turning

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INTO WORDS ON THE PAGE

WHAT IS “REAL LIFE”?
Let’s start by acknowledging that “real life” is everything that we perceive::everything we have ever seen, touched, heard, tasted, smelled, felt, and remembered, and it is all filtered through our brains and colored by who we are, what we know, think, and believe. The same is true for everyone else. Therefore, real life is not exactly the same for everyone.

If the events, storyline, and characters in your novel were generated from your imagination, you are using the total of what you know about real life including snatches of what you have personally experienced, read, heard from others, and so on. Good Luck. That’s not what I’m getting at.

In this article, the “real life” being addressed is narrowed down to the parts of real life that can be used in fiction and, potentially, the writer can be sued for. This whole discussion is about how to avoid a law suit.
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                                                Image Source: cartoonstock.com/search?type=Sue+the+author
​
​Essentially there are five things from “Real Life” to consider:

● Writing about a real event or experience.
● Writing about a series of events and experiences making up a period of time or a lifetime.
● Writing about or using the persona of a well known / famous event or person.
● Referring to the names of real businesses, products, and places in writing.
● Writing about or using the persona of people we know, acquaintances, people we see,
   and those we merely know about, such as celebrities.

In terms of events and experiences [one or a lifetime], these can be something that happened to the writer personally, and that writer wants to tell the story of his/her experiences. Most of the time there will be other real people involved but it is the author’s story, the one s/he lived.

A variation is that the event or events were experienced by several or many people, including the writer, and it is their story to be translated from real life into words on paper. This usually involves getting permission, interviews, review of draft by others, and so on.

The third variation is that the event or events were experienced by several or many people, but not the writer, and one or more of these people has told the writer about the events, or the writer has researched. Again, we’re talking about permissions, interviews, reviews, etc.


In the case of transforming a real live person into words on the page, it depends on whether the intent is to write about the character himself (i.e. that living person is playing themselves as the character) or simply to transfer personality and/or physical characteristics of the living person to a character in a book.

Unfortunately, all of these scenarios can get a writer into trouble.

ARE YOU LIABLE TO GET SUED FOR LIBEL?
Because this is about what a writer can do to avoid getting sued, let’s look at what the risks are. Remember, the purpose of the laws are to protect individuals and organizations from unwarranted, mistaken or untruthful attacks on their reputation
.
​
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​“Your Honor, it is my client’s view that these scurrilous
allegations have damaged his reputation and have made
 almost impossible any further visits to the woods.”
​

Image Source: cartoonstock.com/slander.asp
● Libel and Defamation
These words mean essentially the same thing, and they refer to any published material that damages the reputation of an individual or an organization. A person is libeled if a publication:

  • Exposes them to hatred, ridicule or contempt,
  • Causes them to be shunned or avoided,
  • Generally lowers them in the eyes of society, or
  • Discredits them in their trade, business or profession. Libel is defined as a

   “false statement of fact “of and concerning a person that damages their reputation."

The law of defamation is not concerned with who you intended to target, but who gets struck by the low blows. That means an unintentional defamation is actionable. If you intended to pattern the evil aunt in your book after that awful neighbor Mrs. Whatserface, but town librarian Miss Paininthebutt thinks you used her for the evil aunt character [and everyone else in town thinks the same], it will be Miss P. whom the courts care about.


● Slander
Slander is defined as ‘defamation by word of mouth’, which shouldn’t affect authors.

● The Right to Privacy and The Right of Publicity
Libel is not the only issue to consider, but also the Right To Privacy. Something written in a book might be provably true, taking care of the libel issue, but could also expose truths about someone’s personal life that invade their privacy, which is an actionable claim. There are four kinds of Right to Privacy.

  • First, there is an intentional intrusion into a private place or affairs of another and that intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. [Peeping Tom offense.]


  • Second is the appropriation of name or likeness, for intentional use without consent of another’s name or likeness for your own benefit. This is the Right of Publicity claim. A person who is not famous [who does not make money from who they are] will not have this claim.

  • Third, there is unreasonable publicity given to private life which means publishing facts which are not of valid concern to the public and which would be highly offensive to the reasonable person. True but embarrassing, and no one needs to know.

  • The fourth invasion of privacy claim is making someone look like something they are not in a way that is highly offensive.


● The Burden Of Proof Lies With The Defendant
“In libel cases, the burden of proof lies with the defendant [the author or publisher] and not the plaintiff. In other words, you must prove that what you write is true. The person you’ve targeted does not have to prove that you’re wrong. This is because libel laws are meant to compensate people for damage done to their reputations — they’re not meant to punish someone for lying.” 

Source: jerichowriters.com/libel-law-for-writers-and-authors

Note: A true statement that damages someone’s reputation is not libel! It may, however, be an invasion of privacy.
​

● “Do you base your characters on people you know?”
Authors are asked this question frequently. I have heard, or read, many a female author respond by saying she had used her ex-husband as the villain in her novel, exposed all his nasty little habits and the rotten things he’d done, and ripped him a new one. Ha hah!

Understandable, but risky. I’ve never heard about any of these particular authors being sued for libel, but some writers do get sued. It's a real thing, particularly if you are a successful writer who is well known and well paid for your work.

So, the question is how can a writer who utilizes real-life people, prototypes of real people, or real events in books for sale to the public, do so without getting sued?

I’m not saying authors should sit around worrying about getting sued but writers need to know how to avoid it. I’m not a lawyer, so all of this is based on what I have read from legitimate sources and no personal experience whatsoever.


HOW TO USE REAL REOPLE FOR CHARACTERS
Using real people as characters in your book can be done by changing the physical characteristics of your character enough to disguise his/her identity. The risk of being sued is further reduced if your character is treated as a likable character rather than a malicious or hateful person. Risk can also be reduced by using parody. Absurd situations are less likely to be believed as truth by the public. Parody may not work in your story, but it is a option.

Note: The main protagonist may be flawed but should be, ultimately, likeable [even if it takes a few chapters to get there], so it’s touchy to pattern the main protagonist after someone the author dislikes intensely. [The people writers hate usually end up as the villains, obnoxious bystanders, or disgusting interfering relatives.]

Attempt to avoid libel problems by combining or cloning several people’s physical traits and biographical facts, so no single person's actual “DNA” appears in your book. 
Here are a few clues to using a living person as a character in a novel.
.

  • Use your own real life as a starting place and a resource. [All writers do that, I believe, at least at the start of their careers].
  • Change the names ‒ all writers know to do that ‒ but also change the initials. Changing the name from real-life Doug Compton to fictional character Dan Crampton may not be enough. This also applies when changing the name of a location.
  • Change the physical characteristics and mannerism of your character enough to disguise his/her identity.
  • Make the character likeable
  • Use a broadly drawn caricature of your real- life prototype.

 • Try separating the physical characteristics from the personality characteristic and mannerisms of the prototype.
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“I must say, this is the most inspiring and
heart- warming revenge memoir I’ve ever read!”


​Image Source: bradveley.com/heartwarming_revenge_memoir/
I keep a file of interesting characters, character traits, names, and physical features. When I need a prototype, I think about what the fictional character has to do in the novel and what character traits are needed to accomplish the tasks I’ve set out for them. Then I try to match the real life prototype to the fictional character. Sometimes my prototypes will sit around doing nothing for years, until the right story and character come along. Most of the time it comes out as a composite, and it works well for me. Each writer needs to develop their own method.

WHAT TO TAKE FROM THE LIVING PROTOTYPE
● Physical characteristics
The most obvious things we can take from a living prototype are physical features [face, body type, posture, hair, whatever]. It can be an entire picture of the person, but often one or two features are enough. The features that make those people memorable and intriguing, like Jimmy Durante’s nose or Freddie Jones in the movie Dune, with eyebrows that grow up over the forehead. This may include some related mannerisms that involve the outstanding feature, such as Groucho Marx always wiggling his thick eyebrows.

And don’t forget body type and other types of physical features besides facial.
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Freddie Jones in “Dune”
              Freckles                               Big nose                               Wrinkles                     Eyebrows - Image Source:
Source of Images: pinterest.com/amazedhuman/intriguing-faces/             scifibr.wordpress.com/freddie-jones      
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Overall look - Image Source:       Ears    Image Source:                    Youth           Jimmy Durante – Image Source:
pinterest.com/pin/2562830          stockphoto.com/large-ears                                imdb.com/name/nm0002051/
35023540727/               

● Physical Mannerisms
Someone with nothing particularly outstanding in their looks can still have mannerisms that are unusual and noteworthy. They could also do something such as always bowing to people when they meet or tipping their hat. Mannerisms such as rubbing the chin or scratching the head when the person thinks, are fairly common. That can work to the writer’s advantage [harder to pin down to a particular real person] or to their disadvantage [not unique enough to make the character interesting.] How about a character who has a strange voice and claps her hands every time she laughs.
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● Personality Traits
More often than not, it is the real individual’s personality traits and the things they do that writers want to replicate in characters. [Here is where an ex-husband comes in.] There is more wiggle room using personality traits rather than physical features. More than one cranky, mean boss has a temper and yells at his employees. Lots of people are always moody or react with hostility when confronted with criticism.


Groucho Marx - Image Source:                   Don’t use all the live person’s traits. ​If your prototype is     time.com/4049402/groucho-marx-125        loud and obnoxious, change the way your character                                                                                 demonstrates these unpleasant traits. 
​  

​Finally, don’t let your living prototype constrain your fictional character. Allow your characters to do other things than the prototype might have done, to learn from experiences. Don’t keep your fictional character from changing because the real life prototype never learned anything new or changed.

DITCH THE CELEBRITIES
A writer should not use famous people or celebrities in lead or subordinate roles in a novel. If you intend to do that, you are out of this league and need to get a lawyer specialized in this kind of law.

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Writers can include famous people in cameo appearances based on fact. You can probably repeat facts from responsible sources and interviews. If characters from your novel run into the famous person on his tour of Europe, the famous person needs to have been on tours to Europe. The writer doesn’t have to identify which tour or what date; just that Celebrity X makes tours to Europe. A politician who travels around the world all the time probably doesn’t even need that.

Actress Dame Maggie Smith
Image Source: pinterest.com/pin/249316529357109064/


Most of the time, if the celebrity is not a main character, you don’t need the name or a fictional one will do. If you want readers to believe you are talking about Celebrity X, a good description of the person and their actions and reactions will say it without needing the name. (Also, using real people tends to date your novel.)
​

TRADEMARK NAMES
When writing either non-fiction or fiction, a writer may have occasion to mention a trademarked product.

Use of trademarked names in fiction does not violate intellectual property laws. However, the writer needs to be cautious depicting real businesses and products. For example, if you have a character die from a bad hamburger at Wendy’s or hurt himself because of a defective pair of Nikes, then prepare for a trip to libel city.

Also, you must not turn a trademarked brand name into a verb or a non-proper noun [called trademark dilution]. In other words, don't have characters "hovering the living room," "drinking a coke," or "googling their names." Either make the products sound like heaven-on-earth, or simply refer to a vacuum cleaner or soda pop. As long as the portrayal is innocuous, and brand names are capitalized and not "genericized," there is no need for any kind of acknowledgment.

In fiction writing, it is difficult to always avoid using the names of real businesses, products, and locations. It is becoming common to include a section in books that tells the reader who owns the trademark to those businesses. If you don't acknowledge trademarks, you can open yourself to lawsuits from businesses who are trying to protect their trademarks. If a business doesn't protect their trademark, they can lose it. And keep your complaints to yourself. Negative or untrue comments can open you up to libel lawsuits.

Also, be careful if you make up fake business and product names. They may not be fake. Check to be sure before you use them.


REAL PLACES
Most of the time using real places for settings is nothing to worry about. I suppose if the writer wants to defame the community or city, h/she might come toe to toe with the Chamber of Commerce, but that’s unlikely unless your words could be taken to mean the place is dangerous, particularly for tourists. [The movie "Jaws" for example.]

I’ve found that most of the time the biggest concern is an accurate, but not necessarily detailed, description of the city or town regarding streets and where they go, street names, layouts of various districts or quarters, landmarks, and physical features. Don’t put a big river running through the city unless it actually has a big river running through it. You can invent a fancy restaurant, but don’t locate it in the worst part of town or next to the railroad unless your plot has a specific reason to do so.

No matter how obscure your setting is, there is always at least one reader out there who is going to know whether or not your description is accurate. And that person will let you know… but law suits are unlikely.


If you need to, create your own city. Just be careful about what you name it.


“THE WAY IT REALLY HAPPENED” DOESN’T MEAN IT’S GOOD FICTION
As much as we may want fiction to replicate “real life”, or vice versa, they are not the same. Each “reality” has its own rules and, whether or not you are writing fiction or non-fiction, you have a theoretical contract with the reader. If the book is non-fiction, the writer is agreeing to be truthful, at least to the extent that it is possible.

Fiction, on the other hand, promises to deliver to the reader a compelling but plausible story [within the parameters of the genre] with vivid, well defined and believable characters and a dramatic plot.

The fiction writer is expected to make whatever changes needed, big or small, and expand the scope of the story [even if the real events didn’t happen that way] to create good fiction. Besides, “real life”, as most of us experience it, can be pretty routine and dull much of the time, and “dull” is not good fiction.

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“I don’t think you can accuse another author
of plagiarizing you for using the same words
when they were in a different order.”

Image source: cartoonstock.com/court_case.asp
TIPS FOR WRITING SAFELY
Harry Bingham, writing for jerichowriters.com/libel-law-for-writers has the following tips for writing safely.

"● Don’t solely rely on proving that your statements were literally true if, when they’re taken as a whole, they have an extended, more damaging meaning.


● Be especially wary when referring to events in the past. If someone did something illegal or bad in the past, don’t imply they are still doing it unless you can prove it. And even if you can prove it, do you want to expend the time and cost to do it in court?

● Don’t exaggerate in your claims or language. Don’t suggest or predict dire consequences.

● Watch out for innuendo. Comments alone may not appear defamatory but in context with other information about the person, they can get you into a libel suit.

● Don’t repeat rumors.


● Don’t quote others. If you publish defamatory remarks about people or organizations made by other people you will be just as liable to be sued as they are. So if you can’t prove the truth of their statements, don’t repeat them.
​
●Don’t draw unprovable conclusions. It is a common mistake to draw unverifiable conclusions from the basic facts.

● Don’t use irresponsible adjectives.  A misplaced word can result in costly action.


“Disclaimer:   This article discusses legal issues of general interest and is not designed to give any specific legal advice concerning any specific circumstances.   Libel law is fact specific.  Further, is no single body of  law applies.  Today, information travels far and wide.  Many countries do not recognize the protections we give authors and publishers.  It is important that professional legal advice be obtained before acting upon any of the information contained in this article.”  jerichowriters.com/libel-law-for-writers-and-authors
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Image Source: cartoonstock.com/llibel_suits.asp
JUST SAYIN’!
□

Sources
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/256283035023540727/
 http://writersrelief.com/2011/03/21/fiction-or-nonfiction-memoir-or-novel-know-what-to-call-your-story-or-book/
http://www.copylaw.com/new_articles/real_people_in_fiction.html
https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/large-ears
https://time.com/4049402/groucho-marx-125/
ttps://julieschumacher.com/writing/essays/turning-real-life-into-fiction/
https://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/6-tips-for-writing-fiction-based-on-true-events
https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/Novels-Based-True-Stories-45479760
https://writersweekly.com/ask-the-expert/using-real-peopleplacesevents-in-fiction
https://jerichowriters.com/libel-law-for-writers-and-authors-what-you-need-to-know/
https://writehacked.com/fiction-writers-guide-using-real-people-story/
https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/2110/using-the-real-world-in-writing
https://www.writermag.com/improve-your-writing/fiction/current-events-in-fiction/
https://annerallen.com/2012/02/8-tips-for-turning-real-life-into/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002051/
https://www.cartoonstock.com/search?type=images&keyword=Sue+the+author&page=1
https://www.cartoonstock.com/search?type=images&keyword=Sue+the+author&page=1

https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/l/libel_suits.asp
https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/large-ears
https://time.com/4049402/groucho-marx-125/
https://bradveley.com/heartwarming_revenge_memoir/
​​
https://theiapolis.com/movie-122Z/dune/gallery/freddie-jones-as-thufir-hawat-in-dune-1984-1078818.htmlhttps:/www.pinterest.com/pin/256283035023540727/
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THE FIVE SENSES: Part 2 - Hearing and Touch

10/21/2022

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Note: Again this week my website has messed up and placed "The Five Senses -Part 3 - Smell, Taste, and Memory" after this post. Scan down to the end of Part 2 and you will find Part 3. Thank you. 

THE FIVE SENSES

How human beings interpret and respond to the world around us makes us who we are. Novelists, aspire to make their characters vivid and to imbue them with realistic emotions, actions, and reactions. It’s all in the emotions: how characters feel, act, and react.

The five senses – sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch – are our doorway into the world. They are complimented by four internal senses: pain, balance, thirst, and hunger. Each of the five senses function independently, but they interact and complement one another. 


When the input from all the senses is processed by the brain, various highly intertwined emotions and feelings occur. What we hear, see, taste, smell, and touch provides us with information which tells us how to feel.

Image Source: alabamasinus.com/ears/

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HEARING
● If a tree falls on an uninhabited island with no one to hear, does it really make a sound?

Hearing (Audition) ‒ the second most used of the senses ‒ is the mechanism by which humans perceive sounds which occur both outside and inside the body. i.e. the sense of detecting sound and receiving information about the environment from vibratory movement communicated through a medium such as air, water, or ground.
​

Sound is a vibratory movement, also in the form of a wave, created by a disturbance in pressure. This is communicated to the hearing apparatus through any environmental medium, i.e. solids, liquids, and gases. In other words, hearing is another way in which a person’s sensory cells respond to a specific kind of physical energy (both internal and external stimuli), which are converted into nerve impulses that travel to the brain.

Scientifically, all vibratory phenomena are under the general category of "sound," even when they lie outside the range of human hearing. [That answers the question. Yes, there is sound whether someone hears it or not.]

● Anatomy of the Ear
Like other sensory organs, the ear is responsible for gathering data (sound waves) from the environment and translating them into a form that our brains can understand. The ear itself functions in three steps: collecting the vibrations, converting the vibration into mechanical energy, and relaying each as an electrical impulse to be interpreted by the brain.

• Outer Ear
The outer ear captures the sound waves which move through the auricle and the auditory canal to the eardrum (called the tympanic membrane). There the vibrations are translated into nerve impulses.

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Image credit: Miracle Ear
Image Source:
ohniww.org/general-overview/
​• Middle Ear
The tympanic membrane is attached to the first bone in the ossicular chain of three small bones, the malleus, incus, and stapes. The three bones propel one another sequentially, ultimately striking a coiled chamber filled with fluid, called the cochlea.

• Inner Ear
The primary role of the inner ear is played by the cochlea. The cochlea’s oval window is the membranous barrier between the middle and inner ear. When the last bone in the middle ear strikes the oval window, the resonance is carried through the fluid.

The bottom layer of the cochlea is covered by a layer of microscopic hair cells, each stimulated by specific frequencies, or pitches, of sound waves/vibrations. Once stimulated by the movement of the fluid, they relay that information to the brain via the auditory nerve to be interpreted in the brain as sound.

Exposure to too much loud sound can break off those tiny hairs, and they do not grow back.

​● Sound Waves

A sound wave is a disturbance that creates a region of high pressure (compression) followed by one of low pressure (rarefaction). These variations in pressure are transferred to adjacent regions in the form of a spherical wave radiating outward from the disturbance. Sound is therefore characterized by the properties of waves, such as frequency, wavelength, period, amplitude, and velocity.
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      Image Source: www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/               Image Source: catholicscienceteacher7.blogspot.com/
Both loud and low-frequency sounds can be perceived by other parts of the body [as vibrations] through the sense of touch.

The mechanisms of human hearing transform sound waves by the combined operation of the outer ear, middle ear, and inner ear, into nerve impulses transmitted to the appropriate part of the brain. From there the brain takes over, runs the sounds through the personal filters, and decides what is worth keep. It sends that part off to the proper long-term memory.

Again, how the system work is less important to writers than which sounds we remember, how we react to them, and the corresponding emotions or feelings.

● Direction and Distance
By having two ears, humans (and animals) can determine the direction of the sound they hear. Processing the time lag and difference in volume provides the perception of direction. An ear on each side of the head allows humans to distinguish whether a sound is coming from the left or the right. You can also easily distinguish whether the sound, particularly high frequency sound, is coming from above you, below, or right in your face.

The height information is detected by a small amount of reflection off the back edge of the ear lobe. This reflection is out of phase for one specific sound frequency, and the elongated shape of the lobe causes the frequency to vary with angle of the source of sound. You can then tell the direction. Height detection does not work well for sounds originating to the side or back, or those lacking high frequency content. Volume and sound quality also help to determine the distance a sound is coming from.


The wavelength of the sound and its tone are also important pieces of information for the brain to determine the direction of the sound source. Sound coming from one direction will reach the ear furthest away approximately 1/500 second later than the closer ear, and our brains can distinguish this time lag.

WRITING TIPS ON USING SOUND
• Example 1 - External sounds as triggers to memory, emotions, and reactions.
If your character, as a small child, was in a terrible car accident in a thunder and lightning storm, that crippled her father, it makes sense for that character, as an adult, to be terrified by thunder and lighting and have strong, probably-negative emotions in any similar event. Perhaps she runs away every time she hears thunder close by. The man she loves doesn’t know about that pattern, and he proposes marriage when it is raining, just before a blot of thunder hits. When she runs away, he might believe she was running from him.

This example is very simplistic. External sounds make good triggers for memories and related emotions, particularly fear, and how a character reacts to that emotion. That is nothing new, and novelists use this all the time without thinking about it.


• Example 2 - Sound of Voice
A sound that is often overlooked in writing, however, is the sound of a person’s voice. One aspect is the particular voice of a particular person. The sound that distinguishes one character from another. A southern twang, perhaps. It doesn’t even have to be unusual.


The other dimension, where writers often get lazy, is Tone of Voice. Author Lisa Hall Wilson says, “Tone of voice is incredibly powerful and often overlooked in fiction. We’re tempted to shortcut things – he exclaimed, she whispered, she said anxiously. Sometimes our voices change unconsciously, but the change can be heard, and sometimes it’s intentional. When intentional, we can affect our voice to convey emotion or attempt to invoke it in another person.”

Oftentimes, writers have been advised to stick with short dialogue tags like, “she said”, “he replied”. You have to choose the correct times to do more than that. There is more to tone of voice than volume, such as speed, pauses, cadence, pitch, trailing off sentences and, believe it or not, punctuation

• “Get out,” he said in a flat voice.
That sentence does not convey much in the way of emotions, except, perhaps the rather harsh choice of words.

• “Get out!” he yelled.
I hear anger or disgust and impatience.

• “Get out!” he joked and started laughing.
Just playing around.


I once had a boss spoke with punctuation. He might have well have said “period”, “question mark”, or “exclamation point” at the end of each sentence. He always paused appropriately at commas, and so on. It was a little off-putting at first ‒ I got used to it ‒ and you never, never misunderstood what he meant.

Tone of Voice and other aspects of speaking can surprise readers with emotions they don’t see coming. It also gives greater depth to your characters. Examples include:
• Shaky Voice
Changing both pitch and volume can imply nervousness, overstimulation, exhaustion.

• Change in Pitch
Changing pitch can imply romantic interest, deference, or vulnerability. A sudden higher pitch is a signal of nervousness or anxiety. A sudden lowering of pitch can indicate vulnerability, a desire to hide.

• Cadence
Speaking louder or softer, faster or slower can imply interest. Monotone voices imply boredom, nervousness, lack of enthusiasm. Rising inflection at the end of a phrase, implies a question.

• Volume
Getting very quiet signals feeling vulnerable or overwhelmed, nervous, anxious, tired, fearful, etc. Getting loud is sometimes just to be heard, to clarify ourselves, frustration, nervous, angry, etc

• Dry Throat/Loss of Voice/Hoarse Voice
Having a suddenly dry throat or hoarse voice conveys nervousness, anxiety, panic, fear, stress, etc

• Articulation
Expressing one’s self without hesitance and with confidence implies being comfortable and sure of one’s self. Expressing one’s self with ums and ahs, stumbling over words, or repeating, can imply nervousness, anxiety, fear, vulnerability, excitement, surprise, overwhelmed, etc.


• Intensity
Using the proper tone can imply assertiveness, playfulness, authority, or declarative. You can tell when a person feels strongly about what they are talking about. Speaking loudly, faster, with lots of cadence, and punctuating with sharp movements and clipped words can imply passion, excitement, frustration, redemptive anger, stress, sadness, joy, fear.

By not taking advantage of the many nuances of the speaking voice, writers lose good opportunities to show characters’ emotions rather than telling.

• Example 3 - Using sound to set the mood.
The sense of sound can be powerful. Consider a forest with the chirping of many small birds, the rustle of small mammals moving through the softly falling leaves, or the whispering of a breeze through the trees sets a rather peaceful and pleasant mood. Or this same forest could resonate with the howl of an unidentifiable animal hunting its prey not far off. Branches creak above your head, followed by the snap of twigs as the wind moans through the tree as if in pain.


• Example 4 - Use onomatopoeia to capture the sounds of a scene, (but don’t overdo it. Less is more.)

Image Source: huffingtonpost.co.uk/neuroscience-touch
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TACTILE SENSE
The sense of touch is the faculty by which external objects or forces are perceived through contact with the body (especially the hands). The tactile sense is also referred to as sense of touch; the skin senses; the touch modality; the coetaneous senses.

Sight and touch together enable us to locate objects in the space.

Still, touch is an easy sense to overlook, simple because we are always touching something; clothes, or if you’re not wearing any, the air and temperature are still there. We get to the point of not thinking about it.

● Anatomy of the Skin
Our skin, which is the largest organ of the body, serves as a protective barrier between our internal systems and the outside world. The skin’s “sense of touch” is what gives our brains a wealth of information about the natural environment, including temperature, humidity, and air pressure. Most importantly, this sense allows us to feel physical pain for the purposes of attempting to avoid injury, disease, and danger.

The top layer of skin, the epidermis, is what we see. It contains very sensitive cells called touch receptors which, like our receptors for other senses, send information to the brain for processing.

​The second layer, the dermis, contains hair follicles, sweat glands, sebaceous (oil) glands, blood vessels, nerve endings, and a wide variety of touch receptors called the Somatosensory System

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Image source: ourhumansenses.blogspot.com/sense-of-touch.html
● The Somatosensory System
The somatosensory system , a huge network of nerve endings and touch receptors in the skin, controls our ability to sense all the touch sensations we feel ‒ cold, hot, smooth, rough, pressure, tickle, itch, pain, vibrations, and more. Within the somatosensory system, there are four main types of receptors.

• Mechanoreceptors are those receptors which perceive sensations such as pressure, vibrations, and texture. These four types respond to indentations and vibrations of the skin. They are generally found in non-hairy skin such as the palms, lips, tongue, soles of feet, fingertips, eyelids, and the face.

Different receptors are slowly adapting and others, rapidly adapting receptors, enabling the skin to perceive both when you are touching something and how long the object is touching the skin. Still other receptors feel sensations such as vibrations traveling down bones and tendons, rotational movement of limbs, and the stretching of skin.

• Thermoreceptors are those receptors which recognize sensations related to the temperature.

• Nocireceptors (pain receptors) detect pain or stimuli that can or does cause damage to the skin and other tissues of the body. There are over three million pain receptors throughout the body, found in skin, muscles, bones, blood vessels, and some organs.

• Proprioceptors sense the position of the different parts of the body in relation to each other and the surrounding environment. They are found in tendons, muscles, and joint capsules.

When the receptors receive the information, the neurons in the nervous system takes on the task of transmitting messages to the brain and carrying back messages from the brain. This allows the brain to communicate with the body. Like the other senses, the brain decides what to keep and stores those sensation in long-term memory.

● Types Of Touch

• Light touch is called a protective touch because it is designed to keep us safe. It respons to anything that brushes the skin lightly and can include tickling. Light touch will usually set off our body’s protective warning system.

• Discriminative touch is the part of the system which provides very specific and detailed information about what you are touching or where you have been touched. Your brain gets an enormous amount of information about the texture of objects through your fingertips because the ridges that make up your fingerprints are full of these sensitive mechanoreceptors.


• Touch pressure (deep touch pressure) is a firmer touch or a squeeze. It works alongside the discriminative touch pathway.
​
● Tolerance Levels
People have different tolerance levels to touch sensory inputs, categorized as these basic responses.
• Slow responses to touch sensory input:
• Seeking out touch sensory input
• Sensitivity to touch sensory input

This is particularly important to using the sense of touch in writing. Different characters would have varying tolerances for touch.

● Writing Tips On Using Touch
Using the sense of touch also is powerful when setting the mood and arousing emotions. Touch also captures sensations that typically occur internally, like your experience of temperature, pain, and pleasure.

• Example 1
Write about what it feels like to sit in your office chair. How does your body feel? Where are your points of contact? The places where you feel sore or stiff? What emotions does it evoke? Now write about how it feels to sit in your favorite chair. How does your body feel different? Where is your weight situated? Is your mood and/or emotions different?

• Example 2
Because our hands have a higher density of receptors, we are likely to think of touch as the way we feel when we touch something, which is often with the hands and often related to texture and weight.

Remember: The sense of touch is from your whole body, and it is not just the way objects feel when we touch them, but also what we feel when something touches us and the emotions and reactions. Receptors which perceive sensations such as pressure, vibrations, and texture are generally located in the palms, lips, tongue, soles of feet, fingertips, eyelids, and the face.

When you put your arm around your spouse, it feels one way and evokes certain feelings and emotions. When your spouse puts an arm around you and squeezes your shoulder, the feelings and emotions may change. If a complete stranger puts an arm around you and squeezes your shoulder, the feelings and emotions will definitely be unlike the other scenarios… and also the reactions.

JUST SAYIN' !


Sources: Hearing
https://alabamasinus.com/what-causes-clogged-ears/
https://www.firstaidforfree.com/which-special-sense-is-the-last-to-go-in-an-unconscious-patient/
https://www.ohniww.org/mechanism-general-overview/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing#:~:text=Hearing
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Hearing_(sense)#:~:text=Hearing
https://www.factsjustforkids.com/human-body-facts/hearing-facts-for-kids/#:~:text
https://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/Demos/rad2/mdq.html
https://study.com/academy/lesson/amplitude-lesson-for-kids.html
Sources: Touch
https://learning-center.homesciencetools.com/article/skin-touch/#:~:text=Our
https://www.griffinot.com/touch-sense-sensory-processing/
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/neuroscience-touch_n_6489050
https://www.visiblebody.com/learn/nervous/five-senses
http://ourhumansenses.blogspot.com/2012/12/sense-of-touch.html

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THE FIVE SENSES: Part 3 - Taste, Smell, and Mermory

10/21/2022

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THE FIVE SENSES
How human beings interpret and respond to the world around us makes us who we are. Novelists, aspire to make their characters vivid and to imbue them with realistic emotions, actions, and reactions. It’s all in the emotions: how characters feel, act, and react.

The five senses – sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch – are our doorway into the world. They are complimented by four internal senses: pain, balance, thirst, and hunger. Each of the five senses function independently, but they interact and complement one another. 


When the input from all the senses is processed by the brain, various highly intertwined emotions and feelings occur. What we hear, see, taste, smell, and touch provides us with information which tells us how to feel.

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SENSE OF TASTE (GUSTATION)
Sense of taste means the direct perception on the tongue.

But what is the tongue perceiving? The way in which we identify flavor involves more than just the tongue. Flavor is based on a combination of the senses of taste, smell, and touch. It is the interaction of these senses which determines whether we like the taste of a given food, dish, liquid or, in the case of children, objects.
​
There is a strong link between taste and emotion because both senses are connected to the involuntary nervous system. This has contributed to our evolution. Taste aided human in testing the food we were consuming. It was therefore a matter of survival. A bitter or sour taste was an indication of something which could be poisonous such as inedible plants or of rotting protein-rich food.

The tastes sweet and salty, on the other hand, are often a sign of food rich in nutrients.. That is why a bad taste or odor can bring about vomiting or nausea. And flavors that are appetizing increase the production of saliva and gastric juices, making them truly mouthwatering.
 
● Anatomy of the Tongue
When we chew our food or drink, molecules are set free in our mouths, stimulating taste receptor cells. The cells send signals through three cranial nerves to taste regions in the brainstem ‒ the facial, glossopharyngeal, and vagus nerves. These impulses get routed through the thalamus, which relays sensory information to other brain regions.
But what is it that we taste on our tongue? Our tongues can differentiate between five basic tastes:
  • Sweet
  • Sour
  • Salty
  • Bitter
  • Umami

The latter taste is created by the presence of glutamate, contained primarily in high-protein foods such as meat. Umami is characterized as tasting pleasant, savory, and also "meaty". The fact that there are sensory cells specifically for the fifth taste, umani, was discovered by a Japanese researcher around 1910. Umani is the Japanese word for savory.

Flavors that are appetizing increase the production of saliva and gastric juices. The rich diversity of taste sensations arises from the wide-ranging combinations of these five basic tastes, such as the sweet-and-sour taste. Hot is not a taste but a touch sensation. Research is being done to identify taste receptors for: Alkaline (the opposite of sour), Metallic, and Water-like.


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Location of Specialized Taste Receptors
Image source:
alimentarium.org/en/knowledge/senses-taste

● Taste Buds
Taste buds, the organs in the tongue that register taste, are situated around what are known as the gustatory papillae. There are about 2,000 to 4,000 of these small papillae structures on the upper surface of our tongue.

When the chemical substance responsible for the taste (called tastant), is freed in the mouth and comes into contact a nerve cells. The nerve cells is activated when specific proteins in the wall of the sensory cell are changed, this results in the sensory cell to transmit messenger substances, which in turn activate further nerve cells. These nerve cells then pass data for a particular perception of flavor on to the brain.

​The numerous wart-like bumps, called taste papillae, on the mucous membrane of the tongue are where the substance producing the taste is transformed into a nerve signal. The taste papillae contain many sensory cells with a special structure: together with other cells they make up a bud that looks a bit like an orange with its sections arranged around a center.
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Image Source:                                                                                 Image Source: opentextbc.ca/taste-and-smell/​
agefotostock.com/gustatory-papillae-human-tongue                              
In the middle of the top side is a small indentation filled with fluid. The chemical substances responsible for the taste are washed into this funnel-like hollow. This makes sure that the substances are detected and analyzed by as many sensory cells as possible before being swallowed. That’s why food tastes better when you eat slowly.

Most of the taste buds are on the tongue, but also exist inside the oral cavity, in the back of the throat, epiglottis, the nasal cavity, and even in the upper part of the esophagus.
The final step is performed by several cranial nerves which carry the data to part of the lower section of the brainstem (the medulla oblongata). At that point there is a split: Some fibers carry taste signals together with signals from other sensory perceptions like pain, temperature or touch through several exchange points to consciousness.

Around half of the sensory cells respond to all five basic tastes, while the rest specialize in a particular taste.

Our sense of taste deteriorates with age, in a development that is easy to explain. Our sensory cells have a lifespan of just 10 days, but are constantly being renewed. In advanced age, however, this renewal no longer takes place on a one to one basis, with result that the number of sensory cells declines over the course of time.

● Writing Tips On Using Taste
Taste is extremely subjective, personal and evocative, which are some of the reasons why it is so difficult to write. But it can be one of the most powerful senses. Writing using taste is also tricky because the writer must select the right time to employ the imagery. In the wrong place, it can distract the reader.

• Example 1
Put your reader into the mindset of your main character while they’re eating. What does the first coffee of the day taste like to a tired caffeine addict? Is it different from the last coffee? Try describing the sensation of tasting your favorite childhood snack for the first time in many years ‒ what does it feel like to experience that taste again?

​• Example 2 - Mix sensory words for effect.
The masterclass.com example is  describing the zesty taste of a lemon as bright (a visual description) or the last light dissolving over the horizon as a whimper (an auditory description).
​
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SENSE OF SMELL (OLFACTION)
The sense of smell is  one that, being housed in the nose, allows us to transform the chemical information of vo latile compounds into nerve signals that, just as the other four senses, will travel to the brain for transformation into the experience of a specific smell.

The volatile compounds are chemical substances carried in the air and trapped in the nose by its structure. The mucosa of the nose contains between twenty and thirty million olfactory cells, allowing humans to perceive an infinite number of smells and aromatic nuances. Far more than tastes.

One factor making olfaction unique among the senses is that its receptor cells are themselves neurons. Each olfactory receptor cell has filaments called cilia, with receptors designed to bind to specific molecules. Like all neurons, the cell also projects a thicker fiber called an axon. The axons come together in the olfactory nerve and go directly to the brain.
In our daily lives the sense of smell gives us the ability to detect danger (like gas leaks), analyze the quality of a food, relate smells with memories, analyze the humidity level and, despite much controversy, detecting pheromones.


● Anatomy of the Nose

• Collection of Data
As already stated, the chemical information of volatile substances is released into the atmosphere as water-soluble molecules. As we breathe, the molecules are pulled into our nostrils.
​
The tips of olfactory nerve cells equipped with several hair-like structures called cilia, are receptive to different odor molecules. The data is picked up by the neurons in the nose, an impulse is created, and passed along to the olfactory bulb, the part of the brain that is responsible for analyzing smells. Your sense of smell is the only sense that has a direct connection to the brain. The others travel first to the spine.

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  Image Source: mediamatic.net/239167/nose-nostalgia                   Image Source: exploringnature.org/db/1079
The olfactory cells are located in the upper part of the nasal cavity, a region at the top of the nostrils, in a mucous membrane that acts as an olfactory area. In fact, the mechanical action of sniffing drives the air towards that region, since under normal conditions it circulates through the lower part which has other functions related to breathing.

Olfactory cells have receptors that capture the molecules and translate their chemical information into a nerve signal that can be processed by the brain to experience the smell in question. .

• Processing by the Brain
The synapse is a neural process that allows neurons to communicate with each other through the "highways" of the nervous system along which the electric signals travel to the brain.

Once the information is converted into these electric nerve impulses, the impulses have to jump from neuron to neuron in the network ‒ without losing any of the information ‒ causing each neuron to activate. In other words, the release of neurotransmitters by one neuron allows the next one in the network, by absorbing them, knows exactly how it has to be electrically charged. These jumps occur millions of times before data reaches the brain.


The electrical information from the millions of olfactory cells converges in what is known as the olfactory nerve, one in each nostril, and they unite, without passing through the spine, in what is called the olfactory bulb.

The olfactory bulb is part of the brain’s limbic system, an area of the brain that is also home to the amygdala and the hippocampus which play major roles in creating and controlling our memories, moods, behaviors, and emotions. The close proximity between these sections of the limbic system explain why smells can bring up powerful memories almost instantaneously.

“Like all the senses, smell is born in the brain. The practically infinite nuances of odors that we can feel are due to the action of this organ. And it is that smells only exist in our brain.” enorcerna.com/wiki/neurology/sense-of-smell 

● How The Senses Of Smell And Taste Work Together
Smell and taste smell are linked both in biological structure and in the mind. Both function on touch-specific nerve endings that require the sensed chemical to touch them for activation. Both are your perceptions of tiny molecules in the air and in food. Information we receive as different types of energy and molecules combines into the seamless experience of our surroundings.

The actual process is complicated and involves a great deal of chemistry where receptor proteins involved with both senses are connected by a chain of amino-acids. Too technical for most of us who write novels. We will just have to believe that the interconnections between the two senses are real and can be explained by science.

The importance of odor in the common concept of taste becomes obvious when a person has a snuffed nose from cold and can no longer “taste” food.

● Useful Facts
• People can detect at least one trillion distinct scents.
•  Each human has their own distinct odor, similar to unique finger prints.
•  Scent cells are renewed every 30 to 60 days.
• The sense of smell is the only cranial nerve that can regenerate.
• You can smell feelings of fear and disgust through sweat, and then you will most likely experience the same emotions. 
•  Women have a better sense of smell than men, possibly because they have a more developed orbital prefrontal region of the brain. It may have also evolved from an ability to discern the best possible mates, or to help women better bond with newborns.

● Writing Tips On Using Smell
The sense of smell is very closely connected to memory, and a good writer can use that to their advantage. Walking into your grandmother’s house and immediately recognizing the smell of her cooking (or her flowery perfume) can succinctly evoke a powerful emotional response. Similarly, the smell of something unpleasant ‒ the acrid stench of motor oil, the rancid, vinegary smell of expired milk ‒ can provoke strong, visceral reactions in a reader.

• Example 1
As a creative writing exercise, go to a place you know well: A familiar park, the mall, the office, the library. Make a list of the smells that define that place for you. The piney scent of the trees, the antiseptic smell of cleaning fluids, the mustiness of old paper and bookbinding, and the buttery smell of cookies baking, so on.

• Example 2 - A little bit goes a long way.
You don’t (generally) want to overwhelm the reader with olfactory descriptions, but a few well-placed details can create a powerful impression.
​

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MEMORY
Okay, so we know that the numerous sense receptors of the body forward the information gathered, including related emotions and feelings, to the brain. Remember, the brain evaluates these emotions and feelings and the related sensory data using our personal filters, trashes those it deems unimportant, and sends the others to long-term             Image source:                            memory.
   myinterestingfacts.com/memory
​
Memories make up the ongoing experience of our lives. Our collective memories provide us with a sense of past, present, and future, and make us who we are. Memory makes fictional characters who they are as well.

As you learn and experience the world and changes occur at the synapses and dendrites, more connections in your brain are created. The brain organizes and reorganizes itself in response to your experiences, forming memories triggered by the effects of outside input prompted by experience, education, and training.

● Short Term Memory
We only store sensory information for fractions of a second in our short-term memory. According to Richard C. Mohs, PhD, "Short-term memory has a fairly limited capacity; it can hold about even items for no more than 20 or 30 seconds at a time."


Then the data moves to parts of the frontal cortex responsible for analyzing the sensory inputs and deciding if they're worth remembering. If they are, they're shipped off to the various parts of long term memory.

● Long Term Memory
If our long term memories are essentially who we are and what we believe in, then everything we see and do is filtered through those lenses.

Because our brains only focus on a fraction of the details, our filters kick in. We tend to focus on those things that matter or are important to us as individuals. Although humans seem to rely more heavily on sight, remember that sounds, vibrations, touch, smells, and a general sense of mood are all processed through the brain and its filters in the same way.

Thus, our emotions are essentially products of our filtering system. Everyone is different, and therefore the emotions evoked by stimuli will vary.

EMOTIONS, FEELINGS, AND MOOD ARE NOT THE SAME
Unfortunately, feeling the emotions does not always mean we recognize them for what they are or understand them. Root causes are often elusive. Emotions can be confused with feelings and moods, but the three terms are not interchangeable.

● Emotions are how individuals deal with matters or situations they find personally significant. According to Psychology and Counseling News “Emotional experiences have three components: a subjective experience, a physiological response and a behavioral or expressive response.”

● Feelings arise from an emotional experience and is categorized in the same group of conscious experiences as hunger or pain. Feelings result from emotions and are often liti e a person is conscious of the experience, this is classified in the same category as hunger or pain. A feeling is the result of an emotion and may be swayed by memories, beliefs and other factors.

● Mood is a short-lived, temporary, emotional, low-intensity state. Moods vary from emotions because they lack stimuli and have no clear starting point. For example, insults can trigger the emotion of anger while an angry mood may arise without apparent cause.

THE SEQUENCE OF EMOTION
There is general agreement among psychologists that emotions are made up of three parts: subjective experiences, physiological responses and behavioral responses.

● Subjective Experiences
All emotions begin with a subjective experience which is also referred to as a stimulus: sound, touch, smell, sight, taste. While basic emotions are expressed by all individuals regardless of culture or upbringing, the experience that produces them can be highly subjective.


● Physiological Responses
Almost simultaneously with the brain processing the experience, humans experience a visceral and uncontrollable physical reaction.; The heart speeds up. The eyes widen or narrow. A shudders runs down the spine. You may make an instinctive verbal sound, like crying out or gasping.

This is the autonomic nervous system’s reaction to the emotion we’re experiencing. This system controls involuntary bodily responses and regulates our fight-or-flight response. Studies demonstrate facial expressions play an important role in responding to an emotion.

​● Behavioral Responses
The behavioral response follows the uncontrollable response to the emotion, such as a smile, a grimace, a laugh or a sigh, along with many other reactions depending on societal norms and personality. 
Only after the involuntary and uncontrollable response does a person’s conscious thought process kick in. You can then think and speak. “What just happened?”

When writing novels, it is important to show the character’s reaction to the emotional experience. Showing that reaction should be presented in the proper sequence. The subjective response doesn’t show and happens in the brain. The physiological response is felt viscerally and may include movement, facial expression and inarticulate sound. The behavioral response, rational thinking and speech (which is more than a grunt or scream) comes last.

If the reaction is out of sequence, the reader will feel that something is off and the scene will seem somehow unrealistic.


BASIC and COMPLEX EMOTIONS
Throughout history many theories and hypotheses have been presented by the scientific minds of the time. According to Psychology and Counseling News, documentation of the concept of basic or primary emotions dates back to a reference in the Book of Rights, a first-century Chinese encyclopedia.

Measuring and defining human emotional is a challenge that people have confronted for centuries. Basic emotions are associated with recognizable facial expressions and tend to happen automatically. The field of Psychology has generally embraced Paul Ekman’s list of the six basic emotions; the seven added in 1999 are less universally accepted by the profession.


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​● Happiness
● Sadness 
● Fear           
● Anger
● Surprise
● Disgust

● Embarrassment
● Amusement
● Excitement
● Excitement
● Contempt
● Shame
● Pride
● Satisfaction

  Image Source: online.uwa.edu/news/emotional-psychology/

TAKE AWAYS
 The body is a marvelous design. When you take into account what goes into daily living and how many internal processes have to happen and how many nerve impulses have to reach the brain and be processed just for us to experience the five senses, not to mention movement, it boggles the mind. Everything humans see, hear, feel, taste, and smell occurs seemingly-instantaneous, and often emotions follow closely behind, although some may take a while to kick in.

​JUST SAYIN’ !
□
 
Sources: Five senses
https://online.uwa.edu/news/emotional-psychology/#:~:text=List%20of%20the%20six%20basic%20emotions%201%20Sadness,3%20Fear%204%20Anger%205%20Surprise%206%20Disgust
http://puzhen.com/blog/aromatherapy/benefits_of_aromatherapy__essential_oils/balancing_the_five_senses_and_emotions/#:~:text=The%20five%20senses%2C%20although%20independent%20on%20its%20own%2C,various%20emotions%20and%20feelings%20felt%20from%20the%20heart
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Sources: Taste
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-use-the-five-senses-in-your-writing#how-to-write-with-smell
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https://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/your-sense-of-taste
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279408/
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https://opentextbc.ca/biology/chapter/17-3-taste-and-smell/#:~:text=Taste%2C%20also%20called%20gustation%2C%20and%20smell%2C%20also%20called,stimulus%

https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/how-does-perception-smell-taste-coincide-350600#:~:text=Taste%20and%20smell%20are%20linked%20both%20in%20biology,the%20sensed%20chemical%20to%20touch%20them%20for%20activation.

Sources: Smell
https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/239167/nose-nostalgia
https://enorcerna.com/wiki/neurology/sense-of-smell-characteristics-and-function/
https://www.bmj.com/content/308/6934/961
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https://sites.google.com/a/lovejoyisd.net/lovejoy-anatomy-and-physiology/home/09-special-senses/chemical-senses-taste-ans-smell
https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/smell-disorders#:~:text=Your%20sense%20of%20smell%E2%80%94like%20your%20sense%20of%20taste%E2%80%94is,nose.%20These%20cells%20connect%20directly%20to%20the%20brain.
https://www.britannica.com/science/chemoreception/Interaction-between-taste-and-smellhttps:/www.brainfacts.org/thinking-sensing-and-behaving/taste/2020/how-taste-and-smell-work-011720
 
 Sources :Memory
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/how-memory-works.html
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2021 Memory updates
http://www.newopticalillusions.com/illusions/3d-chalk-drawings/page/13/
https://depositphotos.com/5448880/stock-photo-3d-man-stacking-some-cardboard.html
http://creativehospitality.blogspot.com/2014/01/decorative-dinner-table-setting-ideas.html
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/289848925988009204/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8588167/Human-brain-limit-information-process.html
https://momsmagazine.com/emotional-contagion-catching-your-childs-feelings-when-you-use-parental-intelligence/
https://momsmagazine.com/emotional-contagion-catching-your-childs-feelings-when-you-use-parental-intelligence/
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THE FIVE SENSES: Part 1 - VISION

10/14/2022

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How many times have novelists been told to “show, not tell”? I can’t count that high. To “show” means the author must invoke the five senses that human beings are blessed with in order to describe what is happening and how the fictional character is feeling, acting, and reacting.

Image Source: webstockreview.net/5-senses

THE FIVE SENSES
The manner in which human beings interpret and respond to the world around us makes us who we are. Novelists aspire to make their characters vivid and to imbue them with realistic emotions, actions, and reactions. It’s all in the emotions: how characters feel, act, and react.All authors are human beings so they should know all about emotions, right? But do we know what is behind those emotions?

The five senses – sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch – are our doorway into the world. The Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first to write about them. Presumably, we need all the senses to survive. Although people can get along without all five of them, humans are not designed to function with more than one or two inoperative senses. The five senses are complimented by four internal senses: pain, balance, thirst, and hunger.

Each of the five senses functions independently, but they interact and complement one another. Under various stimuli, the combined effect of all five senses forms a unique impression of an experience. That occurrence is internalized through our five sensory organs – eyes, nose, ears, tongue, and body. Thus, they work simultaneously, resulting in everything human beings learn, feel, and know.


When all this input is processed by the brain, various highly intertwined emotions and feelings occur. What we hear, see, taste, smell, and touch provides us with information which tells us how to feel. The reverse is also true ‒ what we feel can be heavily influenced by what our senses are taking in.

So, let’s start by exploring the senses.

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VISION
Vision ‒ the most used of the five senses ‒ is the ability to detect light patterns from the outside environment and interpret them as images. The eyes are the sight organs, and most people know essentially how eyes function.

Image Source: pexels.com/photo/human-eye
​

Although we are bombarded with sensory information, and the sheer volume of visual input can be overwhelming, our visual systems have evolved to focus on the most-important stimuli. To deal with just the important visual stimuli, an estimated one-third of the cerebral cortex is dedicated to analyzing and perceiving visual information.

A novelist doesn’t need to know the details of how the eye works, but there are several important factors to keep in mind. The most significant elements of vision are the amount and brightness of the light and the distance from the object observed.


● Anatomy of the Eye
Vision is the only photo responsive sense. Visible light travels in waves and is a very small slice of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum.The photoreceptive cells of the eye, where transduction of light to nervous impulses occurs, are located in the retina. To get there, light passes through the cornea and the lens, where both bend the light waves to focus the image on the retina. The iris, the colored part of the eye, regulates the amount of light entering the eye.

Picture
Human Eye Cross Section
Image Source: opentextbc.ca/?s=SIGHT


Cones and rods are the two types of light photoreceptors in the retina. Cones, which are the source of color vision, exist in three forms, each of which is sensitive to different wavelengths which vary based on their frequency (wavelength = hue) and amplitude (intensity = brightness).

Rods respond in low light and can detect only shades of gray. Cones respond in intense light and are responsible for color vision. The rods and cones are the site of transduction of light to a neural signal. A large degree of processing of visual information occurs in the retina itself, before visual information is sent to the brain along the optic nerve.

Visual signals along the optic nerves carry information such as form, movement, depth and brightness, color, and finer details. Once in the brain, visual information is processed in several places. Some of it projects directly back into the same place in the brain, while other information crosses to the opposite side of the brain. This crossing of optical pathways produces the distinctive optic chiasma (Greek, for “crossing”) found at the base of the brain and allows us to coordinate information from both eyes.

​● Light and Color

Light travels in electromagnetic waves. A photon is a packet of electromagnetic radiation. The electromagnetic spectrum shows that visible light for humans is just a small slice of the entire spectrum, which includes radiation that we cannot see as light because it is below the frequency of visible red light and above the frequency of visible violet light.
Picture
Electromagnetic Spectrum
Image Source: opentextbc.ca/?s=SIGHT
Wave amplitude is perceived as luminous intensity, or brightness. The standard unit of intensity of light is the candela, which is approximately the luminous intensity of a one common candle.

We perceive color because of the three types of cones in retina of the eye. The colors of the visual spectrum, running from long-wavelength light to short, are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Humans can distinguish about 500 levels of brightness, 200 different hues, and 20 steps of saturation, or about 2 million distinct colors.

Human rod cells and the different types of cone cells each have an optimal wavelength. However, there is considerable overlap in the wavelengths of light detected.
​

WHAT YOU SEE DOES NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT REALITY
The other factor to keep in mind when writing is that “seeing should not be believing”. Not everyone sees the same things at any given place and time, and what you do see may not reflect reality.

This is because our long term memories are essentially who we are, what we believe in, and everything we know. (Heard that before, have you?) Past experiences molds us into who we are at any given time. The brain learns to use those experiences to identify our values, beliefs, and how we feel about external (and internal) occurrences. Because the brain’s short-term memory can only handle a limited number of details at a time, it develops filters that screen out those things that are important to us.

When the short-term memory receives a multitude of data from the five senses, it utilizes those filters to sort the information. Only those details the brain chooses as being important to the individual, are shipped off to long-term memory. The short-term memory discards the rest.

Of course, all this happens almost instantaneously. The result is that people tend to focus on the details that are important to the individual and miss a lot of others. Therefore, you can’t rely completely on what you or others see. Also, people react to the information stored and not that discarded.

For example, if three characters (or real people) walk into a room, presumably all three will take in the gist of things without the details. Let's say they all perceive a large luxurious-looking and pleasant dining room with a long table set for a dinner party, and soft music playing in the background.
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Imagine the three people entering are an architect, the wife of a diplomat, and a cellist who play in the local philharmonic orchestra.

The architect ogles the dome above the center of the table, thinking about the construction and how a different shape and color might affect the balance of the room. Or maybe a more modern chandelier would look better.
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Image Source: castledesign.com/pages/domes.html                            Image Source: Dreamtime.com
lThe wife of the diplomat may focus on the table settings, colors, the way in which this number of people are seated for lunch, and the pleasant scent from the flower arrangements. She could care less about the dome as she thinks through the arrangements for her dinner party next week.

The cellist focuses on the music, listening to the arrangement and the orchestra playing the composition. His attention is not on the visuals but the sounds.
What your characters notice and perceive is a way of describing for the reader what matters to the character and what interests and experiences they have. Writers often miss this opportunity to enrich their characters.

Although humans seem to rely more heavily on sight, remember that sounds, vibrations, touch, smells, and a general sense of mood are all processed through the brain in the same way.


WRITING TIPS ON USING SENSE OF SIGHT
● Example 1
Don’t create a character who recognizes a face in a dim light at three hundred feet. That’s not going to happen.

An example in real life: “Darrell Edwards was convicted of a New Jersey murder based, in part, on testimony from a witness who claimed that she saw him from 271 feet away on a dark night, when she was not wearing her prescription eyeglasses. “Scientifically, it is impossible to see someone well enough from that distance and make an accurate identification.” https://innocenceproject.org/

Just because this kind of mistake can take place in real life, authors need to be accurate with details. Some readers will always catch the mistakes.

● Example 2

Look at something similar to the scene you want to describe and write 20 things you see. Then pick 3 to 4 of the most interesting things and write down the specific details. Then write a description of the object or scene you want to use in your book.

Remember: What you find most interesting is being filtered through your personal lens. Be sure you are using your viewpoint character’s lens, not your own. What is your character interested in and concerned about. Perhaps a gardener, instead of noticing the redness of the brick wall, will observe the ivy that’s windings its way across the cracked surface of the bricks?

● Example 3
Instead of describing a scene or object directly, try it indirectly. To convey the brightness of the sun, you could say directly that the sun is bright, but you could also describe the way the light from the sun causes the glass windows to shine solid white.
□
Continued Next Week - Part 2 - Hearing and Touch

JUST SAYIN' !
Sources: Five senses
https://online.uwa.edu/news/emotional-psychology/#:~:text=List%20of%20the%20six%20basic%20emotions%201%20Sadness,3%20Fear%204%20Anger%205%20Surprise%206%20Disgust
http://puzhen.com/blog/aromatherapy/benefits_of_aromatherapy__essential_oils/balancing_the_five_senses_and_emotions/#:~:text=The%20five%20senses%2C%20although%20independent%20on%20its%20own%2C,various%20emotions%20and%20feelings%20felt%20from%20the%20heart
https://sites.tufts.edu/emotiononthebrain/2014/10/09/emotion-and-our-senses/
https://exploringyourmind.com/senses-can-affect-emotions/
https://www.amazingappeal.com/other/6-ways-keep-emotional-responses-control/
http://ourhumansenses.blogspot.com/2012/12/sense-of-touch.html
https://webstockreview.net/explore/5-senses-clipart-symbol/
https://savvy-writer.com/writing-without-the-use-of-your-five-senses/
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-use-the-five-senses-in-your-writing
Sources: Vision
https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/431288-parts-of-human-eye-with-name
https://www.rebuildyourvision.com/blog/interesting-vision-facts/understanding-how-vision-works/
https://opentextbc.ca/biology/?s=SIGHT
https://www.pexels.com/photo/human-eye-closeup-photo-801867/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-does-your-brain-recognize-faces-180963583/
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7139090
https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/47-colors-of-light
https://www.shreyaeyecentre.com/age-related-macular-degeneration/https:/www.shreyaeyecentre.com/age-related-macular-degeneration/
https://online.kidsdiscover.com/unit/eyes/video/how-the-eyes-works#:~:text=Despite%20its%20small%20size%2C%20the%20eye%20is%20a,the%20retina%20are%20upside%20down%2C%20reversed%2C%20and%20two-dimensional.
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Indigenous People’s Day

10/7/2022

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​​INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DAY
The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is celebrated globally on August 9. Its purpose is to raise awareness and protect the rights of the world's indigenous population, and to recognize and honor the achievements and contributions they make to improve world issues such as environmental protection. This international day was pronounced by the United Nations General Assembly in         December 1994.
​
In the United States, we celebrate Indigenous People’s Day on the second Monday of October to honor the cultures and histories of the Native American people. Indigenous Peoples Day began as an official holiday in 1992. Before that, October 12 was Columbus Day.

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                                                                                               Image Credit: andrew-james-unsplash.com
    Image Source:                                                                  Image Source:

   newsweek.com/what-indigenous-people-day                myespanolanow.com/national-indigenous-peoples-ay/
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                  Alaskan Athabascan Indian girl                            Image Source: 
                 Image Credit: John Beach, Flickr   
                    aljazeera.com/celebrating-indigenous-peoples-day/ 


EVERYTHING HAS A PAST
The events of the past, by-the-way, ought to be history. Sadly, the old saying that the winner writes the history books is essentially true. The other side of the story, officially, is swept under the rug, forgotten by everyone except those on the other side of the story.

First, President Benjamin Harrison first proclaimed a national Columbus Day in 1892 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Italian-born explorer Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the Western Hemisphere, the New World. The action also helped Harrison resolve a crisis with Italy after New Orleans rioters lynched eleven Italian immigrants the prior year.

Second, no one can really say specifically when the movement to create an Indigenous People’s Day began. Undoubtedly, the idea had been brewing for a long time. For the Native Americans, Columbus Day was always hurtful as it glorified the past 500 years of violence, colonial torture and oppression, and drew attention to the pain, trauma, and broken promises.
During the 1970s, the American Indians were inspired by the civil rights movement to stage various protests to air their grievances against the unjust policies of the Federal Government and the negative impacts on the Native American peoples and culture. At one protest in Boston, Native Americans petitioned for Thanksgiving to be replaced by the equivalent of Indigenous People’s Day.
The most infamous event took place in November, 1969, when a group of Native Americans took over the island of Alcatraz, a closed federal prison in the California Bay Area, to stage a protest over discriminatory federal policies. On Thanksgiving day, symbolically, hundreds of activists joined the occupation.
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     Image Credit: Tumblr
     
Image Source: historythings.com/the-occupation-of-alcatraz/c/re
By the time the the United Nations sponsored the 1977 International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas, there was already discussion about replacing Columbus Day, the day set aside for celebrating the discovery of the western hemisphere, with a commemoration day called Indigenous Peoples' Day.
​

In July 1990, at the First Continental Conference on 500 Years of Indian Resistance, held in Ecuador, representatives of indigenous people throughout the Americas agreed that they would use the 500th anniversary of the first of the voyages of Christopher Columbus as a year to promote "continental unity" and "liberation".
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This led to protests against the "Quincentennial Jubilee" organized by the U.S. Congress for the San Francisco Bay Area on Columbus Day in 1992. The protestors contended that Columbus's "discovery" of inhabited lands and the inevitable European colonization had resulted in the genocide of thousands of indigenous peoples because of the decisions which were made by colonial and national governments. ​

  Some of the delegates after the vote in Ecuador
  Image Source:
arbeitskreis-indianer.at/75-jahre-weltgemeinschaft

At about the same time, the recently formed Bay Area Indian Alliance approached the City of Berkeley, CA, asking the City Council to declare October 12 as a "Day of Solidarity with Indigenous People" and 1992 as the "Year of Indigenous People". After Berkeley complied, other local governments and institutions, not only in California but countrywide, began a trend by renaming or canceling Columbus Day, either to celebrate Native American history and cultures, to avoid celebrating Columbus and the European colonization of the Americas, or due to raised controversy over the legacy of Columbus.

Some states celebrate a separate but similar Native American Day. However, this is observed not on Columbus Day but in September.

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​Years of momentum had to build before, finally, the Federal Government got the word and did something. On October 8, 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden became the first U.S. President to formally recognize the Indigenous People’s holiday, by signing a presidential proclamation declaring October 11, 2021, to be a national holiday.

Image Source: niagarafallsreview.ca/biden-indigenous-peoples-day

FASTER GOVERNMENT ACTION IS POSSIBLE
Contrary to popular belief and observation, Governments can act faster than ours. In 2021, less than two months after New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian expressed support for Indigenous Australians who claimed the national anthem did not reflect them and their history, Australia changed one word in its National Anthem to include them.
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Image credit: courtesy Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park                                       Aborigine family
Image Source: australiangeographic.com.au/queensland/      Image Source: atlantablackstar.com/australian-
                                                                                                        -aborigines
It doesn’t seem a big change ‒ only one single word ‒ but it is for the Indigenous Australians. Prime Minister Scott Morrison on New Year’s Eve announced that the second line of the anthem, Advance Australia Fair, has been changed from “For we are young and free” to “For we are one and free." The change won respect and thanks from the native population.

Would that the U.S. federal government listened to its people that well … and respond as swiftly.

SHOULD COLUMBUS BE DISENFRANCHISED?
In my opinion, Columbus Day should be celebrated for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways.

The commemorative day, initially created to celebrate the 400th birthday of Columbus arriving in the Western Hemisphere (and helping out the president with his problem with the Italians), Columbus Day has become, in the United States, a general celebration of the many important contributions of Italian-Americans. And many Italian-Americans rallied when the proposal to do away with Columbus Day was on the line.

Columbus Day does not in any way preclude the celebration of Native Americans as well. Instead, it is intended to recognize the achievements of a great Renaissance explorer.

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I speak to my earlier point about how suspect history is as written. Although most Americans have been taught in school that Columbus “discovered America”, that is not quite true. “Lucky” Lief Erickson (1019 to 1025 ad), the Norse explorer, is now thought to be the first European to set foot on the North American Continent, 500 years before Columbus. When the Vikings left, the word was not spread to the European continent and no one else came as a result.

Lief Erickson
Image Source:
thehistoryjunkie.com/leif-ericson-facts/

In all fairness, people didn’t know about Erickson when I was a kid, but that points out that we are always learning new things that require us, eventually, to maybe not “re-write history”, but to fill in the greater details and gaps with new information and correct things we have learned are wrong. We should fill in the “other side of the story”. If it happened, it ought to be there.

It is true that Columbus never set foot on the North American Continent, but he did in the Caribbean, Cantral and South America. As a navigator and captain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain and opened the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas. At that time, his expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean, the Bahamas, Central America, and South America.

What he did was to discover the sea route to the Western Hemisphere (at the time educated Europeans knew the world was not flat) and then explored along much of the coastline. These voyages mark the beginning of recorded history of the Americas in a form that could convey information to a wide spread population.

None of this cancels out, excuses, or make up for any of the terrible things that happened as the result of opening up the Western Hemisphere to Europeans. Those events also happened in reality, many with terrible consequences. We all have to know about them, remember them (as shameful they might be) and evaluate and, hopefully, learn from them. It is the only way humans can avoid the same mistakes in the future.


SO MUCH FOR LEARNING FROM THE PAST
The U.S. government has had quite a few hundred years to learn our mistakes from the treatment of the American Indigenous Peoples, but I don't believe we are catching on very rapidly.

When I was in high school and studied 20th century history, there was never one word mentioned about the Japanese internment camps during WWII. More than half of the people of Japanese heritage (117,000) were American citizens. Many had family members serving in the military in Europe, but still they were taken from their homes and put in prison camps. Their possessions and property taken away and most of it ever returned.


I learned about it, in college, from my Japanese roommates who lived through it and told me about it. My friend Lillian said her family was temporarily housed for several weeks in a horse stall at Santa Anita race track in California, before being shipped to Montana. I was so appalled and disgusted, first by our government having done that, second, not only did the public let it happen, they encouraged it, and third, that the reality of that shameful action was hush-hushed and never taught to Americans students. I'm not sure if it is taught today..
.

Americans, who even know about it, say this could never happen again. I hope that’s true but I am not so sure.

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                      Mocida Family                                                                      Japanese at Santa Anita Race Track
         Credit for Image: Library of Congress, Corvis/ VCG/Getty Images
         Source of Images: 
history.com/world-war-ii/japanese-american-relocation  


If our space explorers find little, green Martians already living on the red planet when we get there, I sincerely hope we will not claim the planet as earth’s possession, dismantle the society, and send the Martians off to internment camps on the moon.

JUST SAYIN’ !
□
Sources:
https://www.myespanolanow.com/27066/news/national-indigenous-peoples-day/
https://www.arbeitskreis-indianer.at/75-jahre-weltgemeinschaft-der-voelker-uno/
https://papersowl.com/examples/two-reasons-why-columbus-day-should-not-be-celebrated/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/14/which-us-states-are-celebrating-indigenous-peoples-day/
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/japanese-american-relocation#&gid
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/films-united-states-mistreated-native-americans-alaska-thanksgiving
https://www.uscitizenpod.com/2016/10/columbus-day-and-indigenous-peoples-day.html
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/11/26/metro/native-american-thanksgiving-protest-draws-thousands-with-virtual-event/
https://www.newsweek.com/what-indigenous-people-day-cities-across-america-ditch-columbus-day-recognize-1157792
https://www.npsd.k12.nj.us/cms/lib04/NJ01001216/Centricity/Domain/565/Why%20We%20Should%20Abolish%20Columbus%20Day%20ANTI.pdf#:~:text=We%20should%20cease%20to%20celebrate%20Columbus%20Day%2C%20first,great%20nation%20of%20which%20we%20are%20a%20part.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Graphic+-+History+Vs.+Christopher+Columbus+%e2%80%93+Alex+Gendler&refig
https://www.juneauempire.com/news/alaskans-celebrate-indigenous-peoples-day-virtually-with-music-language-activism/
              
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THE FIVE SENSES: Part 1 - VISION

10/7/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
How many times have novelists been told to “show, not tell”? I can’t count that high. To “show” means the author must invoke the five senses that human beings are blessed with in order to describe what is happening and how the fictional character is feeling, acting, and reacting.

THE FIVE SENSES
How human beings interpret and respond to the world around us makes us who we are. Novelists, aspire to make their characters vivid and to imbue them with realistic emotions, actions, and reactions. It’s all in the emotions: how characters feel, act, and react.

All authors are human beings so they should know all about emotions, right? But do we know what is behind those emotions?

The five senses – sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch – are our doorway into the world. The Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first to write about them. Presumably, we need all the senses to survive. Although people can get along without all five of them, humans are not designed to function with more than one or two inoperative senses. The five senses are complimented by four internal senses: pain, balance, thirst, and hunger.

Each of the five senses function independently, but they interact and complement one another. Under various stimuli, the combined effect of all five senses forms a unique impression of an experience. That occurrence is internalized through our five sensory organs – eyes, nose, ears, tongue, and body. Thus, they work simultaneously, resulting in everything human beings learn, feel, and know.

When all this input is processed by the brain, various highly intertwined emotions and feelings occur. What we hear, see, taste, smell, and touch provides us with information which tells us how to feel. The reverse is also true ‒ what we feel can be heavily influenced by what our senses are taking in. So, let’s start by exploring each of the senses.

Image Source: pexels.com/photo/human-eye

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VISION
Vision ‒ the most used of the five senses ‒ is the ability to detect light patterns from the outside environment and interpret them as images. The eyes are the sight organs, and most people know essentially how eyes function.
Although we are bombarded with sensory information, and the sheer volume of visual input can be overwhelming, our visual systems have evolved to focus on the most-important stimuli. To deal with just the important visual stimuli, an estimated one-third of the cerebral cortex is dedicated to analyzing and perceiving visual information.


A novelist doesn’t need to know the details of how the eye works, but there are several important factors to keep in mind. The most significant elements of vision are the amount of light and brightness, and the distance from the object observed.

● Anatomy of the Eye
Vision is the only photo responsive sense. Visible light travels in waves and is a very small slice of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum.

The photoreceptive cells of the eye, where transduction of light to nervous impulses occurs, are located in the retina. To get there, light passes through the cornea and the lens, where both bend the light waves to focus the image on the retina. The iris, the colored part of the eye, regulates the amount of light entering the eye.

Picture
Human Eye Cross Section
Image Source: opentextbc.ca/?s=SIGHT
​

Cones and rods are the two types of light photoreceptors in the retina. Cones, which are the source of color vision, exist in three forms, each of which is sensitive to different wavelengths which vary based on their frequency (wavelength = hue) and amplitude (intensity = brightness).

Rods respond in low light and can detect only shades of gray. Cones respond in intense light and are responsible for color vision. The rods and cones are the site of transduction of light to a neural signal. A large degree of processing of visual information occurs in the retina itself, before visual information is sent to the brain along the optic nerve.


Visual signals along the optic nerves carry information on form, movement, depth and brightness, color, and finer details. Once in the brain, visual information is processed in several places. Some of it projects directly back into the brain, while other information crosses to the opposite side of the brain. This crossing of optical pathways produces the distinctive optic chiasma (Greek, for “crossing”) found at the base of the brain and allows us to coordinate information from both eyes.

● Light and Color
Light travels in electromagnetic waves. A photon is a packet of electromagnetic radiation. The electromagnetic spectrum shows that visible light for humans is just a small slice of the entire spectrum, which includes radiation that we cannot see as light because it is below the frequency of visible red light and above the frequency of visible violet light.
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Electromagnetic Spectrum
Image Source: opentextbc.ca/?s=SIGHT
Wave amplitude is perceived as luminous intensity, or brightness. The standard unit of intensity of light is the candela, which is approximately the luminous intensity of a one common candle.

We perceive color because of the three types of cones in retina of the eye. The colors of the visual spectrum, running from long-wavelength light to short, are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Humans can distinguish about 500 levels of brightness, 200 different hues, and 20 steps of saturation, or about 2 million distinct colors.

Human rod cells and the different types of cone cells each have an optimal wavelength. However, there is considerable overlap in the wavelengths of light detected.
                                 
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​Human  rod  cells  and the different types of cone cells each have an optimal wavelength. However, there  is  considerable  overlap  in the wavelengths of light detected.

The reflection of light waves off a surface is what creates our perception of color. People
cannot see all colors, even though they exist beyond our visibility levels.
                       
                                Wavelengths of Colors                      
                Image Source: opentextbc.ca/?s=SIGHT
​
When an object appears to us as red, it is because the red wave length is reflected by the object. White objects appear white because they reflect all colors (wave lengths). Black objects absorb all colors so no light is reflected. At very low light levels, we perceive only shades of gray with the rod cells in our eyes. As the amount of light diminishes, colors begin to disappear from our ability to see them.

● What You See Does Not Necessarily Reflect Reality.
The other factor to keep in mind when writing is that “seeing should not be believing”. Not everyone sees the same things at any given place and time, and what you do see may not reflect reality.

This is because our long term memories are essentially who we are, what we believe in, and everything we know. Past experiences molds us into who we are at any given time. The brain learns to use those experiences to identify our values, beliefs, and how we feel about external (and internal) occurrences. Because the brain’s short-term memory can only handle a limited number of details at a time, it develops filters that screen out those things that are important to us.

When the short-term memory receives a multitude of data from the five senses, it utilizes those filters to sort the information. Only those details the brain chooses as being important to the individual, are shipped off to long-term memory. The short-term memory discards the rest.

Of course all this happens almost instantaneously. The result is that people tend to focus on the details that are important to the individual and miss a lot of others. Therefore, you can’t rely completely on what you or others see. Also, people react to the information stored and not that discarded.

Picture
For example, if three characters (or real people) walk into a room, presumably all three will take in the gist of things without the details. Let's say they all perceive a large luxurious-looking and pleasant dining room with a long table set for a dinner party, and soft music playing in the background.

Imagine the three people entering are an architect, the wife of a diplomat, and a cellist who play in the local philharmonic orchestra. The architect ogles the dome above the center of the table, thinking about the construction and how a different shape and color might improve the balance of the room. Or perhaps he notices how well the chandelier compliments the shape of the room and table.

Picture
Picture
Image Source: castledesign.com/pages/domes.html        Image Source: bing.com/search?view=detailV2&ccid

The wife of the diplomat may focus on the table settings, colors, the way in which this number of people are seated for lunch, and the pleasant scent from the flower arrangements. She could care less about the dome as she thinks through the arrangements for her dinner party next week. The cellist focuses on the music, listening to the arrangement and the orchestra playing the composition. His attention is not on the visuals but the sounds.

What your characters notice and perceive is a way of describing for the reader what matters to the character and what interests and experiences they have.

Although humans seem to rely more heavily on sight, remember that sounds, vibrations, touch, smells, and a general sense of mood are all processed through the brain in the same way.


● Writing Tips On Using Sight
• Example 1
Don’t create a character who recognizes a face in a dim light at three hundred feet. That’s not going to happen.

An example in real life:
“Darrell Edwards was convicted of a New Jersey murder based, in part, on testimony from a witness who claimed that she saw him from 271 feet away on a dark night, when she was not wearing her prescription eyeglasses. Scientifically, it is impossible to see someone well enough from that distance and make an accurate identification.” https://innocenceproject.org/

Just because this kind of mistake can take place in real life, doesn't mean authors don't need to be accurate with details.

• Example 2
Look at something similar to the scene you want to describe and write 20 things you see. Then pick 3 to 4 of the most interesting things and write down the specific details. Then write a description of the object or scene you want to use in your book.

Remember: What you find most interesting is being filtered through your personal lens. Be sure you are using your viewpoint character’s lens, not your own. What is your character interested in and concerned about. Instead of writing about the redness of the brick wall, call out the ivy that’s windings its way across the cracked surface of the bricks?


• Example 3
Instead of describing a scene or object directly, try it indirectly. To convey the brightness of the sun, you could say directly that the sun is bright, but you could also describe the way the light from the sun causes the glass windows to shine solid white.


Next week the blog will feature the Senses of Hearing and Touch.
​

JUST SAYIN' !


Sources: The Five Senses
https://online.uwa.edu/news/emotional-psychology/#:~:text=List%20of%20the%20six%20basic%20emotions%201%20Sadness,3%20Fear%204%20Anger%205%20Surprise%206%20Disgust
http://puzhen.com/blog/aromatherapy/benefits_of_aromatherapy__essential_oils/balancing_the_five_senses_and_emotions/#:~:text=The%20five%20senses%2C%20although%20independent%20on%20its%20own%2C,various%20emotions%20and%20feelings%20felt%20from%20the%20heart
https://sites.tufts.edu/emotiononthebrain/2014/10/09/emotion-and-our-senses/
https://exploringyourmind.com/senses-can-affect-emotions/
https://www.amazingappeal.com/other/6-ways-keep-emotional-responses-control/
http://ourhumansenses.blogspot.com/2012/12/sense-of-touch.html
https://webstockreview.net/explore/5-senses-clipart-symbol/
https://savvy-writer.com/writing-without-the-use-of-your-five-senses/
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-use-the-five-senses-in-your-writing
Sources: - Vision
https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/431288-parts-of-human-eye-with-name
https://www.rebuildyourvision.com/blog/interesting-vision-facts/understanding-how-vision-works/
https://opentextbc.ca/biology/?s=SIGHT
https://www.pexels.com/photo/human-eye-closeup-photo-801867/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-does-your-brain-recognize-faces-180963583/
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7139090
https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/47-colors-of-light
https://www.shreyaeyecentre.com/age-related-macular-degeneration/https:/www.shreyaeyecentre.com/age-related-macular-degeneration/
https://online.kidsdiscover.com/unit/eyes/video/how-the-eyes-works#:~:text=Despite%20its%20small%20size%2C%20the%20eye%20is%20a,the%20retina%20are%20upside%20down%2C%20reversed%2C%20and%20two-dimensional.


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    Author R. Ann Siracusa

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