About writing character scents
Character scents play a huge role in the environmental storytelling of the character. It should be more than just slapping an “attractive” scent on the character. I wish people would put a bit more thought into the description of character scents. It’s not enough to just describe your male character smelling like sandalwood and musk or spices and cinnamon (commonly used when the character is foreign). It’s not enough to describe a woman smelling like, strawberries, roses, vanilla, or simply “floral.”
When I’m reading a story I want to understand why a character smells like that. Or if they should even smell like that at all.
Think about what your character eats and drinks. Were they drinking coffee? Their breath should smell of coffee, not sweet like frosting and strawberries. Did they eat bacon and eggs for breakfast? then their breath probably smells like breakfast. It’s probably not going to smell like eucalyptus and ocean spray.
For example, if you have a character that spends a lot of time in a bakery, working in a bakery, (living above a bakery) they would obviously smell like bread, cookies, vanilla, etc. Bakery smells would cling to them. But beneath that scent there should be the smells of their soap, what scent of shampoo they use. Body wash. Build the scent profile from there.
But on the other side of the spectrum, if you have a character that fights a lot, does physical things, jumps, tumbles, would break a sweat. Then that character should smell like sweat, dust, damp clothing, there might be undertones of whatever soap smell that used to wash that day. Or there might be none, especially if it’s been a day since they washed. If you had a character working in a shop, they might smell like metal, rubber, wood, the materials in which they work with. They wouldn’t simply smell of amber and spice.
It is not “unsexy” to have regular everyday common scents. And it gets a little tiresome that characters in fiction (this is not a problem in just fanfiction, published novels suffer from this too) are described to smell like a perfume or cologne ad, regardless of their surroundings or what the character ate, or how much physical labor they’ve done. Think less about a sexy perfume, especially if there is no reason for the character to smell like a cologne or perfume ad, and more about what your character’s environment might tell you about them. Scent goes a long way in environmental storytelling, and providing details about your character.
Does you monster sleep outside? They aren’t going to smell like Irish spring and sandalwood. They are probably going to smell like earth, and the pungent sweet tang of grass, maybe damp fur and dog if they’re a werewolf. Or the coppery scent of blood if they’ve been in a fight.
Your lady character might smell like the oil and grease she was elbows deep in while she spent the day tinkering with her crush’s automail. Your guy character might smell like leather and sweat if he spent the day practicing acrobatics in a magical leather cat suit. Your CEO might smell like ink from their paperwork, the coffee they’ve been drinking, perhaps pressed and freshly laundered clothing and aftershave. Your dragon might smell like metal, copper and smoke if he spent eons lounging amidst a pile of treasure, the scent of dwarf long since having abandoned the mountain.
Remember that smells aren’t just meant to be sexy, but can play a huge role in character and environmental building. They tell us where the character has been, what they’ve been up to, what they might have eaten, or even just how they feel about mint shampoo over citrus shampoo or even no shampoo at all.