A scent worth describing

Text C: an original fiction extract.

At the fragrance workshop, Leila expected to make something that smelled expensive. The instructor, Tomas, gave each participant small labelled scent samples and a paper strip. He asked them to describe a first impression without borrowing the name on the label. Nobody would put a mixture on their skin; the session used the workshop's prepared materials and handling arrangements. Leila was disappointed that even smelling things appeared to require instructions.

Her first sample reminded her of clean laundry. She wrote fresh, then wondered whether that word described anything another person could recognise. Tomas asked what kind of fresh. Sheets brought indoors from a windy garden, she said. Her neighbour at the table thought the same sample suggested a newly cleaned hallway. Neither description made the other's memory disappear.

Leila wanted a mixture that everyone would call pleasant. She chose several samples she liked separately and imagined their qualities adding up. On the paper, the result was crowded and sweet. Each time she returned to it, she searched for one part she could still identify. Adding another favourite made it harder rather than better. Tomas asked her to keep that strip as a record before starting again. She had been ready to throw away the evidence of an unsuccessful beginning.

The second exercise was to make a small scent study for a particular imagined place. Leila chose her father's workshop, then immediately wanted to change it. It smelled of oily cloth, warm wood and the soap he used before coming upstairs. These were not the words she associated with an attractive bottle. She expected Tomas to recommend a flower instead. He asked which part she noticed first when the workshop door opened.

She described the warm wood. Then the sharper note near the sink, and the faint oily smell which she recognised on his work coat. The workshop was not available in one of the small bottles. She would have to suggest it through selected impressions rather than reproduce every material actually present. Tomas helped her compare the prepared samples, keeping the task within what the session offered.

Her new study was quieter. A classmate said it reminded him of a cupboard at his grandfather's house. Leila started explaining that it was meant to be a workshop. Then she stopped. The other description had a warmth she recognised, even though its room was different. She wrote his response beneath her own notes instead of correcting it.

At the end, Tomas returned the strip from her first mixture. It was no longer quite the smell she remembered making. Some parts were fainter; another had become more noticeable. Her notes recorded the ingredients but said almost nothing about the crowded impression she had disliked. She added that, with the time beside it.

On the way home, she thought of the bottle she had imagined taking back: impressive, complete and approved by everyone. Instead she carried two paper strips in the workshop's container and a page of imperfect descriptions. When her father asked what she had made, she asked whether he would describe the second one before she told him its name. He said it reminded him of coming upstairs after a long afternoon. She left that answer exactly as he had given it.

You are Leila. Write an article for the workshop newsletter about what you discovered during the session.

In your response:

• describe your expectations and the problems with your first approach
• explain how the second exercise changed your choices and way of describing scent
• reflect on what the different responses and your notes taught you

Base your response on Text C, developing its ideas in your own words. Write about 250 to 300 words. Up to 10 marks are available for reading and up to 10 marks for writing.