How to use Synesthesia
To use synesthesia, an author explains a sensory experience in a nontraditional way.
A typical description:
The perfume smelled like roses.
A Sentence with Synesthesia (the scent should be related to another sense):
The perfume smelled like bees buzzing in a garden.
You can try to imagine the things you touch, taste, smell, see, and hear as connected to each other. However, if you aren’t a person who experiences synesthesia, it can be quite difficult to use in your own writing without it sounding forced. If you want to use it in your writing, the best method is to brainstorm about sensory experiences that you may have had—or can imagine—that result in connection with your other senses.
When to use Synesthesia
Synesthesia can be an interesting technique within any genre of literature—when an author uses it in his work, the audience is forced to think outside the box about their senses. That’s because it isn’t a standard form of description, rather, it is an expression of an author, narrator, or character’s unique sensations. For example, “the color of clouds was white” is a typical description, but “the color of the clouds tasted like snow” is a synesthetic description. Basically, it is used when an author wants the audience to develop a unique or special idea of a certain sensory experience that they wouldn’t normally consider. Since it is both unique and unusual, synesthesia can be a great tool in fiction, especially when introducing and portraying fantastic or imaginary ideas.