Suskind takes us on an amazing olfactory ride in this excerpt and throughout the entirety of his novel:
Patrick Suskind’s novel, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, is based on a main character who has a supernatural sense of smell. So, when the main character of a novel walks into his mother’s kitchen and catches the buttery scent of scones dancing through the air in salutation, don’t be surprised if that scene takes you back to your Nana’s kitchen stool from your childhood. To no surprise, authors want to tap into some of that. A single whiff of our mother’s favorite flower can take us back in time. Science has proven our sense of smell is our strongest link to the past. In the hard-packed dirt of the midway, after the glaring lights are out and the people have gone to bed, you will find a veritable treasure of popcorn fragments, frozen custard dribblings, candied apples abandoned by tired children, sugar fluff crystals, salted almonds, popsicles, partially gnawed ice cream cones and wooden sticks of lollipops. Here’s a lovely example of visual imagery from Charlotte’s Web by E.B. If an author writes, “The ancient willow trees swayed in the moonlight,” we’re enjoying visual imagery as he or she sets the scene. If an author writes, “She had chestnut brown hair with glimmering golden hues,” that’s visual imagery describing a character's appearance. Tied into each of those elements are vivid images of the characters and the scenery, making visual imagery not only common but paramount.
At its core, every story has five elements: introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. Visual imagery is the most common form of imagery in literature.
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