A question came to my mind out of nowhere today. When I write my brain tries to put me into the physical space of another world. The more senses I try to engage, the richer that world becomes and the more fun it is to write about (and hopefully read) because I'm not at home anymore. I'm on an adventure in a whole new world.
But there are lots of things I haven't experienced, physically, simply because I'm not capable, I don't have the tools, bodily or otherwise, or because they don't exist except in my imagination, such as the flavor of a poison I invented. I think as long as I have a frame of reference, I'm okay. I won't lose the reader, and hopefully I won't make a fool of myself. It does beg the question, though … could a blind person write a seeing protagonist, for example, based only on what they've learned through reading and by what their other senses teach them? I believe so, and I would want to read that book, but for different reasons than most people, maybe. I'd be excited to read that book because I think that writer's voice, focus, perceptions, everything would be wonderfully different from someone who takes sight for granted.
How many times have I read a book where I have no clue as to the surroundings because the writer takes the vision they have in their minds, vision that comes to them from a sighted perspective, completely for granted? I picked up a book by a popular romance writer on a lark recently and was astounded to find myself in a visual void. The only thing I was allowed to 'see' was the handsome hero. The rest was dialogue and the presence of a horse (what kind of horse? No clue.)
Sure, you can go overboard, but I think most writers aren't even close to being in danger of that. Sadly, it seems that purple prose (I love purple) tends to focus on quality of dialogue and sometimes on character appearances/gestures rather than the lush surroundings and sensory experiences we are constantly immersed in. Right now the sun is like warm gold on my skin. The heat penetrates my hair, my clothes, and I'm naked to its touch. The wind tastes like dry leaves, delicately touched by smoke. A praying mantis just flew behind a rusted barrel, its broad body and diaphanous wings briefly sparkling a brilliant sea green before it vanished. Of all the green, leafy places in this garden paradise it could have landed, it chose the one place that's like a weedy desert side-road where you'd expect to find old tires and brittle candy wrappers.
Guess what? I'm just hanging out on my deck at my standing desk, listening to robins complain and the celtic music on my computer, typing. There's so much more to see, hear, taste, smell and feel when the experience is intense. And our books are filled with far more intense experiences than what I'm experiencing right now on an ordinary day. Can you take a reader there?
I do my damndest.