The thing that makes vivid writing is when the reader is in the body of the story, the body of the character. Things smell like something; there's weather, there's texture, there's light.
The sound of her laughter was sticky as sap, the smell of night-blooming jasmine soft as a milk bath.
We parked in back and walked down the stairs with their polished brass railings, past the old-fashioned kitchen. We could see the chefs cooking. It smelled like stew, or meat loaf, the way time should smell, solid and nourishing.
I emitted some civetlike female stink, a distinct perfume of sexual wanting, that he had followed to find me here in the dark.