Colette Planchette can talk to the dead with a supernatural sense of smell. That was the starting point for Liam R. Findlay’s novel The Doom Town Dummies, which follows the misadventures of Colette as she sniffs her way through a village of eerie shop-window dummies, aided by a ghostly best friend. Read all about it, in this guest post from Liam!
Sniffing the dead: My new children’s novel advocates for seeing the world through smell
By Liam R. Findlay
Colette Planchette can talk to the dead with a supernatural sense of smell.
That was the starting point for my novel The Doom Town Dummies, which follows the misadventures of Colette as she sniffs her way through a village of eerie shop-window dummies. Her best friend Lucian happens to be a spectre, and although they are always together, it is difficult to eavesdrop on this pair, because they communicate exclusively through smell.
My reasons for writing such a smell-centric novel for those aged 8+ was because smells are fascinating and more important than we give them credit for. I hoped this story might encourage children to try a nose-first approach in their everyday lives and maybe find some new meaning in what they sniff.
The Second Smell
Colette’s ability to detect the odours of spectres is called the Second Smell. These odours cause Colette’s scent receptors to buzz as her brain translates them into words and feelings. With this, the lemony aroma of Lucian the spectre might come across as bitter when he’s annoyed, while the notes of lilies under heavy rainfall rise up in Colette’s nostrils as Lucian becomes sad.
Colette can sniff how living people are feeling too, because everyone’s soul has a smell (of course). Some people’s souls smell nicer than others, and the more you’re full of nasty emotions and intentions, the less pleasant your soul is likely to smell. Hopefully the smell of the soul belonging to Colette’s uncle, Pierre, gives a hint as to what kind of man he is:
It was often a challenge to remember what his face looked like inside that helmet, but his odour was unforgettable. Grimy wood dipped in tar. The unbearable taste when you choke on a mouthful of seawater. Add to this a sickly dose of Cat Pea Soup, and you had Uncle Pierre.
All of these ideas around smell and emotion are to encourage the reader to think about the smells in their own lives, the meanings they might hold and the personal significance they might have.
Illustrating with Smells
When I’m not writing about odiferous uncles, I’m often working for AromaPrime, who create smells for theme parks and museums. Their clients include the likes of Alton Towers, where a smoky smell is used to create anticipation before boarding a wooden ride, and the Natural History Museum, for whom the smell of a T-rex was created based on fossil evidence.
Using AromaPrime’s olfactory factory (which has its own doppelganger in my novel), I set out to produce a collection of smells based on objects and characters in The Doom Town Dummies. These include the salty bite of Colette’s soul, the lemony tang of Lucian the spectre, the enticing aroma of the story’s lotus flowers, the fishy reek of the Snouted Snatcher monster, and a mysterious ‘yellow smell’ that perplexes and intrigues Colette. In creating the smells of the book in real-life, it was my hope that I could ‘illustrate’ the story via olfaction and show that we don’t always have to rely on what we can see when it comes to storytelling.
Some of these pongs are available for sale on AromaPrime’s website, in case classes, libraries or individual readers would like to sniff as they read. Their main role tends to be at my visits to schools and libraries, where the children often clamber over each other to get a sniff! Whether I’m working with a museum or doing a book tour, it’s a real pleasure to witness just how engaging smells can be in terms of connecting young people to a subject or a story.
The Second Smell isn’t real (or so my enemies would have you think), but everyone with the ability to smell holds a great power that allows them access to all sorts of memories, emotions and sensations that little else can spark so powerfully. As they read The Doom Town Dummies, I hope that children might consider opening their nostrils to the world around them, and perhaps thinking about the role that smells play in their own adventures.
More information!
The book’s trailer introduces the story’s Olfactory Factory inspired by AromaPrime.
The Doom Town Dummies is available to order here.
More information can be found at www.LiamRFindlay.com
