In the mood

Following on from my previous blog on mood, these lines from writer Mike Delosso are illuminating. He says: “I've read all kinds of writing. Some very, very good and I wonder, Why hasn't this person landed a contract yet? and some . . . well, some that needs a lot of work.
“One of the common threads I notice in those that need a lot of work is lack of mood. Creating a mood for the reader is pivotal. Every story should have a mood that it creates, whether it be suspense or horror or warm comfort or sweet love. Think about books you’ve read that have really captured you. Didn't they create a mood in you.
“Here’s some I think of: Stephen King's stories carry a mood of creepiness (by the way, I think King is the master of this mood thing. He could write about a little girl playing dollies in the back yard and it would feel creepy); W. Dale Cramer and his southern fiction creates a mood of down home comfort and simple living; Nicholas Sparks’ stories create that mood of sweet, innocent love.
“See what I mean? Mood is everything. Mood is something chosen by the author before the writing has begun. When you read a story and feel a certain way, that feeling, that mood was created intentionally.”
I wholeheartedly agree. If I start reading a story or book and after a page my mind has wandered because there is no mood I am highly unlikely to read on.
Want to grab the reader? Then consider:
* Word choice. Carefully chosen words that give the piece a desired feeling
* Use physical description - weather, darkness and colours chosen for a setting. This doesn’t follow any hard and fast rule but colour does create mood
* Sentence structure. Shorter sentences create that feeling of movement and suspense. Longer sentences slow things down
* Appropriate metaphors and similes. This is a tough one because I think too many similes are lazy, used too many times before; similes only really work if fresh and different or because no other phrase will do
* Characters - how they act, what they say and how they say it
Create an atmosphere and you have the reader. But beware, it can be subtle - is not always a case of chucking in loads of roaring winds, wheedling fog and banging doors and hoping for the best! There’s more to it than that.
John Dean