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I think writers neglect smell, taste, and touch because they're writing from their movie/TV experience rather than their life experience.

I had initially thought, based on the thumbnail image, that there was something wrong with describing a character with yellow eyes. As a fantasy author currently writing a book with a race of yellow-eyed people, I felt called out. Having seen the video, I can appreciate the difficulty that Jed must've experienced choosing a thumbnail for a video topic that is ironically non-visual in nature.

Tip 2: Filtering through the narrator was life changing for me. When I began to intentionally run every aspect of my writing thought that lens, it took my story up a level.

I remember a description of an action scene I read where a barbarian type character was disembowling a guy. The writer used extremely clinical, technical terms that told me he had opened up an anatomy book before describing it. Really wanted to show he'd done his homework, I think. But that's not how the PoV character, a savage and ferocious warrior, would think about the act of cutting open another man's belly and spilling his guts on the cold, thirsty ground.

I think the "What do they pay special attention to?" question is key for establishing character personalities. If you have the stereotypical knight and princess story, your knight is likely to size up the people around him to figure out who could be a threat while the princess would pay more attention to social status using clues like clothing and manner of speech. The knight checks out the architecture for defensibility while the princess considers the style and history. You can then layer the characters' opinions on top of their observations. One knight might admire the arrow slits in a building because it's yet another way to defend the building while another might feel disdain because the only honor way to fight is by sword. One princess might look down on all those who can't afford the latest finery while another might appreciate the skill of those who maintain their clothing well despite a lack of money. It's one way to "show, not tell" their personalities.

I love that one of my characters is blind and that I'm writing in third person limited. It forces me to get creative and think of more aspects of the world. His thoughts are vivid and he explores his world in other ways. Hopefully it doesn't feel like anything is missing, especially since he rarely feels like anything is missing himself. (Born blind, very much accustomed to it.) He loves trailing his hand across the geometric panelling of the halls, so desperate for connection to the world around him that his hand continues to trail long after the winter cold has numbed him. He's a historian and a diplomat. Other aspects of description: He loves tracing his hands across scrolls. If he does not file down his fingertip's scales, it rasps against the greenfrond paper, breaking focus and whatever little calm he has managed to maintain. (Other character perceiving him, one who has known him for a while). He moved with great deliberation, like he was acutely aware of where each limb was in space and hated even his most gentle intrusions upon the world. Sorry for any disconnected/fragmented writing here. Have brain damage, will definitely be hiring an editor.

“Now I want you to close your eyes” - I tried while driving in Atlanta traffic but it didn’t go over well.

The reality is though, that while familiar smells can trigger a strong memory response (when experienced in person!), people's ability to actually imagine a smell is overall surprisingly bad. Half of the time they don't even know or remember how a specific item smells, and even when they do, it rarely has a strong emotional effect. Of course there are some exceptions - but those are mostly negative ones. The stinging stench of urine, the rotten smell of a food that has gone bad, that kind of stuff isn't hard to imagine, but those already are pretty common in fantasy books. Meanwhile, no one's gonna gain much out of a book describing the camellia-scented love letter as such, because 99% of people will not know what a Camellia even smells like, and the 1% that do will struggle to remember it accurately and even if they do, it's very unlikely they are one of the few people who can accurately reproduce such a specific smell for their mental experience. Humans are, for better or for worse, an overwhelmingly visually operating species, unless their visual sense is impaired. We conciously evaluate only about 0.0004% of sensory information anyways, the vast majority of it being visual, with the other senses trailing further and further behind, with smell being the most disregarded one. Of course it's very important to our ACTUAL experience, but our actual experience is decided by the 99.9996% of subconciously processed sensory information - which generally can't actively be called upon for our imagination. So disregarding the description of certain sensations isn't really a sign of bad writing, it's just... efficient, since it is unlikely to elicit much of a response even if included.

Sure smell is important... but if I read the 145,763th female OC who is described as smelling like jasmine and roses despite being an adventurer who hasn't bathed from a month of tramping through the wilderness...

My dark fantasy novel, which uses a gothic horror aesthetic, is set in a world of eternal night and darkness, which is the main aspect of my worldbuilding I focus on. I chose it because i want to use lots of ocean and maritime metaphors and similes for my descriptions (using the bright full moon and starry twilight skies as consistent motifs) as well as just use vivid and cool imagery for my novel. For example, I feature a location in the book called the abyssal forest, and compare it to the twilight and hadal zones of the deep ocean

"A cold wind whispered secrets through the leaves." WOW. This sounds like Dickens or Brian Jacques (two of the best description writers that I have read)!

One of the three magic trees in my story actually focuses on elements but as you dig deeper you realize it focuses on nature itself eventually coming down to the all the senses. The Beastkin will be the most common characters you'll see taking advantage of magic revolving around senses and physical boosts while Elves will focus on elemental while leaning towards the other two magic trees.

Honestly the thing that really gave me a sense for setting description and to include multiple senses was the Robert Pattinson Batman. Despite not even being the same art form, Gotham in that movie is so insanely immersively portrayed that it was impossible not to imagine what it smelled like the entire time and it kind of tattooed on my brain the fact settings will always have at least one unique piece of sensory input.

The tips are always helpful, especially since I’m slowly writing my own book and I can see the actual difference in how I used to write and how i do now. So thank you for giving these great tips for free

Fun fact, but I do remember my favorite books by the smells they remind me of. And sometimes, when I read I scene I can "smell"it. That's when I know the writting is great and I am living the story.

I was born without a sense of smell, so I am constantly reminding myself that it is a thing which exists. I also have to research how scents are described, because I simply don't know. I have learned how to incorporate it into my writing, for example: My protagonist is in Hell and currently wandering through a dungeon, where damned souls are tortured. A succubus he encountered earlier had tried to seduce him, but he resisted, angering her. She warned him he may find a soul in her dungeon he cared for, and later, he finds his wife's soul (someone he hadn't seen in a long time and believed to still be alive). After rescuing her from her cell, they embrace and kiss, and he will catch a whiff of a subtle perfume. But his wife never wore perfume, cluing him in that this is not his wife at all. Great video, Jed! All your videos have been so helpful and informative. Are your novels available in the US?

One of the best things I learned from Star Trek - Deep Space 9 was that every statement says 3 things. Something about the direct moment. Something about that character because their statement is framed through their perspective. And something about their people or their culture. The present, the character, and the worldbuilding. Next time you watch DS9 think about this and see what you can tell about characters. Love that show. Something you said reminded me of this. Thought you might enjoy. Please keep up the great work!

Interesting. I naturally tend to avoid all these mistakes as they simply make for bad reading. I feel strongly that as authors we should be able to read what we've written and be able to enjoy them from the perspective of a reader, as if it was written by someone else. I think that regardless of one's level of experience with writing genre fiction, the most important aspect is to know what good writing looks like- what it *feels* like. The best writing captures the essence of experience- sensation, emotion, impression- without getting bogged down on the minutiae that we generally don't pay much attention to in our day-to-day experiences. While it can be helpful to keep in mind the spectrum of sensory experience while writing, I find I like to focus on the *essence* of what I'm describing and cater my prose to try and evoke that feeling. A paragraph from chapter one of the first draft of my novel illustrates this well, I think; while the description focuses mainly on the visual appearance of the environment from a sensory context, the emphasis is on the psychological/emotional impact that those visual cues create: "The border of the Deep Wood itself kept most folk far afield simply through its foreboding presence. The boundary was demarcated by an ominous change in the foliage; past the invisible line the trees grew thick and gnarled, their canopies dark and impenetrable as if devouring the light from the sun before it had a chance to touch the ground. The leaves themselves never turned colour or fell, leaving the forest floor strangely barren; no twig nor leaf marred the tangle of interwoven roots. No plants besides those trees grew there either; whether simply from lack of light or by some mystical energy, not even the hardiest of scrub took root under those branches." It's important to remember that all stimulus, whether sight/hearing/touch/taste/smell, simply serves as a trigger for an internal experience. Don't just describe the sensory information your characters experience, but use it as a starting point to elaborate on what those stimuli cause your characters to *feel*. Two characters could be approaching a castle in the distance: you might describe how the rising sun at their backs pierced through the early morning mist, gilding the stalwart walls and soaring towers with light- but each character could have an entirely different internal experience. One might marvel at the sight, taken by the beauty of the architecture enhanced by the graces of nature; the other might look on it bitterly, seeing only a monument to the hubris of "nobility" and a symbol of the power of an oppressive system.

I can't say if Brandon Sanderson coined the term "Pyramid of Abstraction", but I believe the concept itself came from his own instructor when he was taking the BYU class. Lots of good advice here. One thing I am hyper aware of in my writing is starting the first sentence of a paragraph with the character's name. I feel like I do it too often. None of my readers have ever pointed it out, but it feels like I do it too often, and I find myself agonizing over how to restructure paragraphs to avoid it.

I just came across your videos today and I find your content so informative. Thank you so so so much for taking time to help other writers! Your advice is sound, makes sense and is extremely helpful to me and I find myself taking notes while watching your videos. I look forward to more of your content!

I've never seen your content before, but you definitely earned the immediate subscribe! I've been writing fantasy fiction novels since I was eight years old. I'm certainly not very good at it, but I enjoy it immensely! While these are all things I had to learn on my own (because I'm stubborn I suppose,) it's wonderful to be reminded, and to hear someone else's perspective describing these issues! Very clear and well put points here, I'll be looking into more of your content! 🤗😊

I’ve been soaking up your videos as I wait to edit my first draft of my dark fantasy book. I’ve been itching for the past month to begin revising, and your videos have been a massive help in keeping my sanity as I wait. Thank you for all the hard work you put into your videos, and the inspiration us aspiring authors receive by watching and listening!

I know I'm late to the party. Novice writer here. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I thought it was pretty much "done" at 93k+ words, but after watching this I've gone through my book and, so far, added about 500 words describing smells and touch sensations. I had already included more smells than I think is normal from your research, but I'm adding more. And taste, which is difficult. I'm re-reading still, looking for areas to touch up. It's not easy, it takes place in a foreign environment where I can't just say "he smelled mint". But I think it's better already. Look forward to watching more of your videos.

That was really helpful. Thank you.

I have to say that I have never experienced somebody convey advice this well and without ridiculing anything or nit-picking at small details which is obviously just out of a personal opinion. You seem to give people motivation to become better and not just feel discouraged and ashamed if they make any mistakes. I will only watch your videos from now on.

I've recently did the third sage finale for my story, and i did some what you said during the last scene with smell description. It followed a small massacre so I made sure to add stench of blood in the air.

Thanks, this was really helpful.

Just found your channel and I'm pleased to see that I either avoided the mistake completely, or felt it was common sense. Not a knock on the video or tips at all, but as a first time writer this built up a lot of confidence in my ability to write my story well. You earned a sub!

Thank you so much for this! One of my writing weaknesses is description. I learned a lot!

Thanks for the video, man. I love your perspective on things.

I like web novels but a common problem is that they tend to lack sufficient descriptions of characters what is enough and when is it to much.

Thank you for the tips! Currently working on a light novel. These will help me when I'm editing my draft. Again thanks! 😄

Excellent advice in all points! What has been a very useful hack for myself has been forcing myself to omit third-person references to the POV character when writing in close third and instead make declarations of fact. "X was shivering", while descriptive, is a distant description - "it was freezing in here" is the character's undeniable opinion of the situation. Also, the vagueness point is a good one - it's also a danger I have found when getting too close to the POV character's perspective. The challenge is somehow getting the character across while still letting the reader know that you're on their side when it comes to helping them understand the world.

Some great tips there. Even if you do use some of these things sometimes, often unconsciously, it's better to be aware of them and use them appropriately and consciously to write a stronger, more engaging story. I love prowritingaid. I also purchased lifetime access. When I was editing my first novel it gave me so much insight into sentence structure and where I could tighten up so many paragraphs. Just using it for a single edit made the first draft of my next book a much better draft, and for the most part I've avoided a lot of mistakes that I wrote in the first one. The second novel is currently with my alpha reader and they have commented that this draft is much better written that the first draft of the first book.

Oh hell yes, time to settle in and learn stuff!

I am heavily driven by smell as I suffer from hiperosmia, so naturally, my descriptions focus on that sense. Most of my reviewers report that they are immersed in my worlds and want more of them. Now I know why.

I'm so grateful for your advice. I'm still working through my first draft and it's purposely terrible. Videos like these are making me excited for the second and third drafts though.

Good advice all around. I really liked the mention of repetitive sentence lengths. That can really kill the pace of reading and it's such a subtle thing that few people talk about. Cheers!

Excellent, concise tips! I look forward watching your other videos 😊

I think most of your suggestions would also apply to any story with an unusual setting, including historical fiction. Excellent examples, and specifics. Thank you!!

It’s very gratifying for me to watch this video and hear things I already thought by myself. Gives me a confidence boost 😂 Still very helpful, though! Your way of explaining why these things are important is spot-on. You make it easily applicable somehow. Very nice!

As I listen for the second time I have been pausing the video to try and incorporate some of the advice into the work that I currently have in my text editor.

Thanks so much. Just finished my second novel and started to edit. I had a lot of these things on my mind but most of them somehow never made it to the editing plan! Thanks for the help.

I LOVE ProWritingAid!

I don't know if it's because I'm autistic or what but I don't have any childhood memories related to smells or sounds, really. I remember the angry tones of voices of family members, I suppose. I mostly remember visual and kinetic information, personally. I still vividly remember my second-grade substitute teacher had these stunning emerald green eyes and the friendliest face! I literally stared at her, wide eyed, and probably looked like a little psycho twerp lol Smells? Not so much. I just don't process the world that way, I guess. I'm going to stick a little note on my computer to remind me that normal people remember that stuff instead so I gotta try implementing more flavorful text regarding it. Thanks for the eye-opener! Some of this advice kinda feels like something a good D&D table could help a lot of people with🤔I mean, as writers, are we not sort of roleplaying our characters and world? Just because we're the gods of it doesn't mean we shouldn't be on the ground with the MCs. And I will say, you're the first person I've heard talk about word repetition this way. I absolutely understand that and pull my own writing apart over it because I'm hyper aware of every word. I learned recently that most people only truly read every two-three words, but I read e v e r y word, so the repeating sentence-starters and just repeating words in general really stands out to me.

Thanks for such a good advices! I checked my draft, and yes, there are much more sight- and noise-descriptions than ones including other senses. I'll try to pay more attention to it. Also after your video I would say that repetitive sentences can be used once or twice as description of something like depression or sorrow from the pov of your character. That how you can put your reader in the same mood. Cool trick!))

Brilliantly explained. Good to hear I'm not making any of these mistakes (any more!) lol great stuff

I'm currently writing a story, this helps a lot :)

2:10 I really liked that point. In all my Story's the chapters with smell discription were always better. The only problem being, that I have very limited smell so the only few things I can smell are some foods and fire. But it's definatly a good point!

The only smells I could remember off the top of my head were the dumpsters at my elementary school and the weird smell from the dentist's office that I could never figure out what it was. For me, hearing is definitely a lot more rooted in my deep memories. Listening to a song or watching an old commercial from my childhood or teen years can almost instantly give me deja vu for whatever I was doing while I was listening to them back then.

Thanks I am currently working on a kind of ambitious and really controversial fantasy novel,so your tips are come really handy.

Saved this video, really good advice that I want to implement as soon as I get home! Thank you for this video

2: I write fanfiction a lot, but I still watch these kinds of videos, and you reminded me to do something like this in my own works. In a fandom i'm in, I have this one character who used to be able to feel emotions, but became unable to feel any emotions at all due to becoming (literally) soulless. When I write for this character, I write them with emotions, however usually they don't fully remember emotions after having them gone for so long, so I try to usually avoid using the names of the emotions or any words involving them, and instead focus on the internal thoughts and feelings inside the body those emotions bring. And I have been forgetting to do that. I'm not good at it yet, but I try, since it puts me into that character's head and it's fun to struggle like that

I really struggle writing descriptions in the way a character and often it’s just how I would describe it. I kinda already knew that I did but this video really made me realize why most of my descriptions feel kinda flat.

just started writing a novel about a guard's life, inspired by the hold guards from Skyrim. About his daily life and what he writes in his journal afterward, something simple. Hoping this and another video I've watched will help to learn over time to hopefully avoid making some mistakes, the videos have definitely helped in beginning to recognize what people like/don't like in fantasy stories.

Awesome video ❤

Thanks! I'm an author who is dipping a toe into the world of professional editing, and your videos are terrific! Can't wait to do a deep-dive into the rest of your tips.

The smell thing - yes, it is strong. But it's strong when you smell it. Not when you think about it, because then you're not really using the smell-memory. Am I right or wrong? If I actually smell something specific, it can definitely remind me of things. But in trying to conjure up a smell when there isn't any didn't work for me. I could think of one. But I definitely visually remembered other things though. Hmm...

2:19 one reason to limit smell to trigger imagination is because the brain doesn't store memory of smell like what he described. it stores recognition of particles that touch the nose as what we have labeled them, and when a memory is made the brain will create "I remember sitting in my room when i smelled cookies baking", and when you recall the memory you will mentally visually see it, mentally audibly hear it, and in some cases (most often due to a deep placed memory such as pain or euphoria) may even feel it, but smell won't be recalled. Taste unlike smell can be recalled but it isn't given a high priority in the neural pathways of memories and thus takes a bit more stimuli to recall. the only reason i know this is i like studding new things, one of which is neurology.

I am a neuro-divergent writer who experiences the world LOUDLY through my senses, so I draw on all of them at different times when describing my settings, and in the characters experiences. Your video is great validation! Thank you.

Wait omg is that a pubmed article in a writing advice video I'm DEFINITELY gonna have to take a good look at this channel

I feel like a good balance of sensory description is mostly sight, often with sound, sometimes with smell, then add touch or taste when warranted. This reflects the typical human experience where you will almost always have sight sensory input, nearly always have sound, frequently have a notable smell present, and occassionally touch something notable or taste something. It is insane to me that taste is above smell in your survey. Especially since taste is like 90% based on smell anyway!

Wow, that was amazing! I think I just found my novel editor!

I write pen and paper solo adventures for my newsletter. Because a lot of them involve dungeon crawling, I have to create evocative descriptions to immerse the player. Your advice is so damn helpful, thanks.

When he started talking science and how the brain works, my heart started to warm.

I love smell description!

15:35 Bars lmao. It had a kind of nice rhythm read aloud, but yeah, you're right that it'd be really tedius to read something like that over and over.

Hey sounds like some really good advice in this video. Thank you.

I didn't have anything to imagine most my childhood was things I saw I don't remember my other senses

I always struggle with disconnected descriptions, and I definitely need to get better with not using the first thing that comes to mind

I use touch (and sound) as a description as much as possible, it’s the most powerful sense to me.

Also, I guess for writers to avoid the 'plot-driven vs character-driven story' mindset, they should just focus on what's the conflict itself and then who participated in the conflict, what is its effect on the characters, and also how they respond. Also, conflict must be the key element of a story since this is the tension or exciting part of a story and the writers must think might characters might help or oppose each other. (Sorry for bad grammar and wordings, english is not my first language)

You sir, earned yourself a subscription.

Great advice. One sidenote... as someone with Aphantasia, all descriptions are tedious and I skip past them, but I know I'm a minority with that. For me, the only descriptions that matter are the ones that impact the story. For example, it makes no difference if a person is tall or short unless that impacts their ability to interact with the physical and social environment.

One thing I like doing with descriptions in my current series is describing the world not just through the senses, but through emotions. Similarly, I enjoy using sensory words to evoke certain emotions with a particular favourite of mine being "a cacophony of fear." Granted, I'm writing a story with an emotion-based magic system and a main character who suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder (also known as Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder), so emotions are very central to how she experiences the world.

Damn, this is a lot to take in. I’ll have to come back to this when I move to the proofreading stage.

One for the playlist

David Farland, who taught Brandon Sanderson and many other successful authors, suggests using what he calls a KAV cycle. It's a rotation of Kinestetic (what a character feels), auditiory (what a character hears), and visual (what a character sees). A series of KAV cycles acts similarly to hypnosis and gives the reader the experience of being lost in the story. I'm not sure if this is an explaination for why those particular senses get so much play or not. It's a useful method, though, IMHO.

Great advice. Overly abstract descriptions are not just limited to new fantasy writers. There is one fairly popular fantasy I DNF at about 30% because the descriptive narrative was so over the top at times it didn't make sense. Completely overblown metaphors and similes where the writer tried to reach too hard to write something unique, instead it just came out extremely silly. But it is a popular book, so maybe some people like that?

My theory is that you need every sense in a story. But like reality, smell, hearing, and sight are primary in judgment and point of view before feeling and taste for most scenes

When he was mentioning about describing a city as a character, it made think of two characters from one of my favorite writers. The one character, a mage, had returned to her home city for a short stay with her oath sister, a nomad. The mage is described as knowing her way around while the nomad feels overwhelmed by everything.

This is one bit of advice I almost didn't need. Just thinking back to my last couple pieces of writing I am always looking for ways to add these senses because... Well, exactly like you've said, intuitively I feel like this is a powerful descriptor. I read romance. The lead character always smells of something spicy (punNOTintended) or floral and it lends itself to an immersive experience. When I teach writing (school teacher here, hi) we encourage an intake of inspiration from all the senses. I'm only in the first part of the video. But it's nice feeling like I'm a little on top of things in this regard- especially because my knowledge and skills could seriously use a lot of work!

I started writing a dark fantasy comic, and there is mystical rainforest called The Sage Forest. It’s shrouded in mystery, and it’s connected to the gods in this story. I wanna add something that spices up the dark fantasy genre (how many times do you see a rainforest in a fantasy story??), while also making it align with the themes and lore. The smell of the dew and mist, the sounds of the birds, trees, and streams of water. The rainforest shrouded in clouds of greenish mist, with little glimmers of sunlight piercing through the canopy. The sight of all the beautiful, outlandish plant life. I want the Sage Forest to feel ethereal, and not of this world. Thanks for the tips, dude!

Wow Jed! Your editing and overall video quality is mind blowing-As someone with a short attention span, i somehow always make it through your entire videos. Thanks for this !

Many thanks indeed! very useful, extremely inspiring.

I know Im late to this video, however I was writing a story and my protagonist was waking from a short coma. I was having such a hard time trying to describe the world around him returning as he regained his senses. I ended up changing the setting a bit to a camp and using the sounds of the forest, the sounds and smells of campfire and cooking food to help the reader get the sense of him coming back to the world and it worked out really well. I ended up going back and looking to where I could use all senses as descriptors where applicable and it seems to read so much better than just a dry description.

Ello! Im a young-ish person about to write a small little fantasy story mainly just for me + family and friends but i do want it to be a good read. This helped me before i begin editing it :D

The smell thing didnt work for me - I dont remember in that way, I'm visual in nature. But I do think its worth including more senses in my writings, so thanks for the idea :)

I think I've actually managed to do the second one pretty well

the ghost of christmas present wandering about was a great sensual scene in a novel

I remember the first time I read the inheritance cycle so many good moments in all 4 books

I once started reading a cyberpunk noir book, well before the internet. I got about 80 pages in before I realised there was very little investigation and a hell of a lot description of the culture of the Tenderloin in this world. I felt so sad i couldn't go there, it looked fascinating. Then I realised, I hadn't a clue what the story was, because nothing was happening. I DNF'd. I wanted a futuristic thriller, not a Rough Guide to Nowhere.

Video is perfectly spot on, as I'm outlining my new fantasy book, thanks I have a question: there will be two main heroes in the book, but the problem is that they are kinda a team and 90% of the book appear together. I'm struggling with POV cuz I want to tell the story from both perspectives, but i wanna know if it would be appropriate if I switch POV from one hero to another sometimes. I remember you were telling us a bit about Kingdom of dragons where there are a boy and a girl and as I understood there both have POV? Do they spend most of the book together?

im writing a story about a blind person. All the descriptions of senses are usually about feel, smell, hearing, and others,

The _Hyperion_ sci-fi novels by Dan Simmons do weird stuff with perspective. In the first book, the story is divided into sections, and each section is a story told by one of six different characters who each explain why they're going on a pilgrimage to a place call the Shrike Temple on the planet Hyperion, and each one does something different. The first one takes the form of a series of journal entries written in first person, then another part is written in third person limited, and so on. The second book is narrated from the perspective of a "cybrid" (a recreation of a dead person powered by A.I.) who sees the perspectives of the pilgrims when he dreams. The narration is in first person when it's his own perspective, then it switches to third-person limited when he's seeing the perspectives of the other characters.

Smell, taste and touch are what makes a book better than a film... along with sense of balance, and all the subdivisions of touch. I find taste to be the hardest to incorporate, as the narrator /POV character isn't always putting (or getting) something in their mouth.

I'm someone with a vivid memory when it comes to sight and I actually found that if I am too immeresed in trying to see the world being told on a page, then I would often stop reading as well to think about how it would look, which also takes me out of it despite being immersed. It's easier to be immersed when you only have one thing to focus on per sense.

Hey Jed could you make a video on how to write dialogue for falsity stories. Ive been struggling

The most refined way of using sense, I think, is to pick different senses to focus on to engage different emotions in a context-sensitive way. A scary section should have a great deal of focus on sound over sight - limited, ill-defined information about a situation is naturally disconcerting. Scenes meant to evoke nostalgia, then, should focus more on smell, for the reasons you mentioned regarding strong memory associations. Obviously there’s no one-size-fits-all rule, but that’s probably a strong tool to use.