Employ the Four Seasons to Enhance Atmosphere in Your Novel

By Bonnie Randall

Part of The How They Do It Series 

JH: Dipping into the archives today for a golden oldie from Bonnie Randall on how writers can take advantage of the four seasons to establish tone and mood in their novels.

Frankie Valli alone can’t establish a mood in your novel—but the literal four seasons just might.

First, though, let’s consider what comprises atmosphere. Certainly the five senses play a leading role, but real richly atmospheric pieces also play off a reader’s presentiment to a location, their innate responses to it. 

Consider, for example, author Barbara Michaels (aka Elizabeth Peters). Michaels loved setting her Gothic mysteries in sprawling old mansions with closed off wings and dusty rooms. 

BOOM! there’s your atmosphere; all of us can immediately appreciate the sense of dread, fear, mystery (maybe even doom) when faced with an old building like this. 

How to Set Tone and Mood in Your Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Setting the right tone can go a long way to drawing readers into your story and keeping their attention.

I'm a little weird when it comes to scary movies. I enjoy (most) of them, but sometimes I also get so tense I can't watch them. I figured out ages ago it the music that gets me, not the scene itself. It pokes at my emotions, and builds the tension in a masterful way that raises my anticipation and fear. This also happens in games during boss fights or any mission with really stressful music.

When a movie or game starts getting to me, I mute the volume and all that built-up tension drops to the floor.

What do movie scores have to do with tone and mood?

How the Wrong Tone Can Change Your Whole Novel

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Tone is a funny thing. Words spoken in a light tone can convey playfulness, but the same words in a serious tone can convey anger, fear, or even a threat. This holds true for actions as well—playfully chasing someone looks and feels different than chasing someone to cause them harm.

Too-flippant characters in a serious novel might undermine the danger and lesson then tension. Characters who never laugh or behave too seriously can turn a light-hearted comedy into melodrama. Even the words we use to describe the setting can send the wrong message if the tone conflicts with the scene (and that’s not the intent).

Playing With Personification

By Bonnie Randall 

Part of the How They Do It Series (Monthly Contributor)

By definition, personification is the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman. In literature, examples of personification number in the thousands, and each of us could present many of our own favorite examples of this device, (one of mine being Stephen King’s (not-so-sweet) ride, Christine).

Why personification works, as opposed to how to craft it, is the topic of this month’s article. When considered at base level, the idea that a place, object, or idea could be emboldened as a person seems not just absurd, but wholly unbelievable. Yet it works incredibly well in novels like Christine or movies like the soon-to-be released Collateral Beauty. Why?

Painting With Prose

By Bonnie Randall

Special Guest Author

Sometimes I see a meme like this and get ridiculously excited (I tell myself it’s because I think like a writer—but really, it’s just ‘cause I’m the most pathetically easy-to-entertain date in town). This one, on the nuances in a palette, had me reflecting on how we, as authors, can employ color to create a bigger, richer feel to our stories. Such as:

1. Capitalizing on Color’s Connotations

Notwithstanding cultural and geographical variances, we tend to associate certain colors with certain things. Such as:

White = innocence, purity, virginity, new
Purple = regal, royals, sometimes mysticism
Green = growth, life, abundance
Orange = fire, sun, energy
Black = grief, mourning, death

Three Tips for Creating Evocative Prose

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

When you think about it, writing is a pretty amazing thing. Ten writers can use the same ten words and create completely different sentences. They can use them to evoke a myriad of emotions from joyous to terrified, and bring a reader to tears as well as laughter.

What words we choose matter. A single edit can change how a reader interprets our work, and knowing that, we can put them in the right mindset for the story.

Get Your Head in the Game: How Character Moods Affect the Scene

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Knowing where your characters are emotionally is a critical aspect of understanding that character. It's what gives them the depth to make them feel real, and not just two dimensional cut outs. If you've ever gotten a critique back that said "the characters just didn't feel real to me," chances are this emotional level is missing, or it's not as developed as it could be.

No one has just one thing on their mental To-Do List. Think about your own day. You get up, you have things to do, you have things you want to do if you can. You feel a certain way, and that will affect everything else you do and how you do it. Wake up in a bad mood, and all those little things that need doing suddenly become huge irritants in your day. Wake up smiling and happy, and you're doing things you might not have done otherwise.