Show Don’t Tell invites your reader into the pages of your story. Normally in show don’t tell the writer uses descriptive language to evoke the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell. You can show taste in terms of intensity, the five basic tastes, physiological reaction, and memory activation.
Show Taste
Taste usually involves food, but not always. More about that later. One way to immerse your reader is to suggest the intensity of a flavor. There is a big difference between the hint of a flavor and a blast. Take peppermint for example. When I add a candy cane to my hot chocolate, I taste a hint of peppermint. But if I put peppermint oil directly on my tongue, that’s a completely different experience. The blast of flavor fills my eyes with tears and stings my tongue. That’s showing.
Let your reader taste right along with you. This is true with all five of the basic tastes: salty, sweet, bitter, sour, and umami. The simple mention of a food can draw on the reader’s experience. Pretzels are salty, cotton candy is sweet. Coffee is bitter and lemons are sour. Mushrooms and meat are umami, also known as savory. So if I write, I gulped a gallon of water after downing a handful of pretzels, the reader will understand the pretzels were salty, first through their own experience and second because it took a gallon of water to quench my thirst.
Try writing a sentence or two to show each of the five basic tastes using familiar foods.
Memory, Physiology, and Taste
Another way to show taste without telling is to describe the effects it has on the body. I’m thinking of the face a person makes after sucking on a lemon. I guarantee if you show your reader that face in your writing, they will understand the lemon was sour! You can do the same thing with bitter tastes as well.
Taste reinforces the memory activation qualities of the sense of smell. Since these senses are partners, a familiar scent can send you down memory lane, but a specific taste can recapture an important personal moment in time complete with emotional overtones.
Does Taste Always Involve Food?
In a word. No. You can taste the salt on your lips from a dip in the ocean, from your tears, or from the sweat that runs down your face on a blistering hot day. You can taste sweet victory or bitter defeat. The English language is full of idioms and metaphors that use the sense of taste. Here are a few examples: There’s no accounting for taste. Give him a taste of his own medicine. Something can be in poor taste.
Especially strong smells can actually be tasted. For instance, when I light a match, I taste the sulfur on my tongue. The same is true when I walk through the garden section filled with chemicals.
Invite your readers into the scenes you write by showing taste intensity, flavor, physical reaction, idioms and metaphors.
Bon Appétit!
