Creating Mood

October 28, 2008

Mary Rosenblum:  Hi, all!  Welcome to our Tuesday Forum.   I hope you all had a very nice weekend.   We've been talking about words in our Forums recently rather than larger elements of story such as plot, character, and so on.  While words are not something to get hung up on in your first draft...just get the story or narrative down on the page....they're an important part of that vital process of translating what you experience in your own mind's eye to your readers' mind's eye.  

What all beginning writers struggle with is what I call 'novice eye syndrome'. That is, you see everything so clearly. But your readers, who can't see into your head, do not.  Specific words add nuance to your scenes, creating a 'mood' and enhancing the emotional tone you set with your characters.  Your choice of descriptives goes a long way to setting mood.  If a winter tree claws at the sky that produces a very different effect than swaying branches.  

A house might drowse in a meadow.  Or it might loom over the Halloween trick or treaters.   It might crouch at the end of a rutted lane.   These 'nuanced' words are also a critical component of your character POV.   If your character notices that crouching house, we'll definitely get a sense that this person is uneasy if not downright afraid.  This is how you avoid that very novice and clunky 'It was a dark and stormy night' or 'he was fearful as he went down the lane'.  

I cannot stress too often, though, that you should forget all about this while you write the first draft.  The more you're distracted from the story by 'dos' and 'don'ts' the less likely you are to actually finish it.  But once you have your first draft saved, then you can start playing with all those details and nuance and word choices that will help create the same scene in your readers' mind's eye as you are seeing.  

For example, say your character is angry. Nothing is going right. He's off to chew out the guards about their lousy job of protecting the princess last night.   Your POV is likely to notice every flaw he sees. He's angry, ready to blame someone. So as he marches down the castle hallways, you'll have him notice those flaws rather than simply describing the scene neutrally or in a positive way.  He might notice cobwebs on the frayed hangings and when he bursts into the guardroom, he's going to notice a sloppily fastened tunic, unpolished boots, a tray of half-eaten food on the table, rat droppings in the corner. These details not only show the scene to the readers, they reflect your POV's mood at the time.

Rae: the first draft, I said "meeting". The first edit, I said "unpleasant meeting". Is that what you are talking about?

Julia:  or you could say, "the den of angry wolves waiting in the conference room"

Mary Rosenblum:  Well, you could, Julia, and this is an excellent example.  It’s  telling. It's creative telling, it's poetic telling. We have that nice wolf metaphor. But what do we see?  We don't really see wolves right? (Well, maybe if Brian Jacques wrote this).  This is when even cool, creative information is still information.  You can use that sort of metaphor...your character might think of the den of angry wolves waiting for him and shudder. But when he opens the door, let's see what he actually sees.

Same thing with that  meeting and unpleasant meeting, Rae. That's useful information, but if you can let the readers think 'oh, this is really an unpleasant meeting' then it's stronger. Now sometimes that's just what you need. You can't show everything! Jason remembered  the unpleasant meeting with His Lordship and shuddered.

Julia:  14 gray-haired vice-presidents waiting to hear his side of the story?

Mary Rosenblum:  There you go, Julia. And lets find a way to describe them that makes the readers think of a den of angry wolves.  What details will make readers think 'angry!'?

Julia:  So you want more than visuals, you want emotional involvement?

Mary Rosenblum:  You want the visuals to evoke a sense of emotion in your readers.

Bss:  14 stern faced ?

Mary Rosenblum:  For example, our hero might notice the knife-edged creases in their cast-iron suits. Their stern faces, yes.   The ram-rod straight backs and the uniform row of scowls.  Uh oh.  Your readers are going to realize that our hero is in for a very unpleasant half hour or so.

Julia:  The silence as they waiting to pounce.

Mary Rosenblum:  There you go, Julia.  That 'waiting to pounce' is your POV's interpretation of their posture and expression.

Julia:  Okay, I'm getting it.

Mary Rosenblum:  Good!  This is THE biggest dividing line between okay and really good prose. How much can you let your readers figure things out.

Rae:  I’m sorry, but I am really slow this morning. I don't understand.

Zave:  the thundering tap of the head chairman's fingers against the hardwood desk.

Mary Rosenblum:  Exactly, Zave.

Rae:  so you need a physical as well as emotional dialogue, right?

Mary Rosenblum:  Rae, this detail for example...the thundering rap of the head chair's fingers against the hardwood desk... (rap is more threatening than 'tap') lets us decide 'oh he's ticked off!' instead of telling the readers 'The head chairman looked angry'.  The physical details go a long way to 'showing' us the character's emotions, Rae.  If we see this bunch of guys described this way, what is our POV's emotional tone likely to be?  He's certainly apprehensive, defensive, worried...one of these at least.

Zave:  nervous

Mary Rosenblum:  Yep, Zave.

Bss:  he ain't smiling as he slowly walks to the den dragging his behind

Mary Rosenblum:  There you go, bss.   If he drags himself in, there's one emotional reaction.  If he marches in and slams the door, there's another.

Zave:  i know I’d be sweating up a storm or fidgeting with my tie, maybe even swallow down a hard gulp of air in reaction to this.

Mary Rosenblum:  Good reactions, Zave.  There we have someone who's apprehensive, nervous, afraid he's in trouble.  Over and over we hand readers the same...the very same....visual and auditory clues that they'd get if they were in this room in real life, and just like in real life, we let them figure out what is going on.  Instant reality.

Reece:  or the opposite ... resentful, angry, ready for a fight

Mary Rosenblum:  We can make him ready for a fight, Reece. He marches in, slams the door, tosses his report onto the desk, looks around the room and says 'Gentlemen, I think we need to clear the air."  Compare this to the fidgeting guy tugging at his tie, his armpits clammy and you have two very different scenes in terms of mood and emotional content.

Rae:   Cathy sat slumped at her desk, staring into space, thinking of the unpleasant meeting she just went through with her associate.

Mary Rosenblum:  That works, Rae. And you sure don't need to add that 'unpleasant'. You're suggesting that it was unpleasant already.  You can also add a bit of internal narrative here and skip the telling altogether.  Cathy sat slumped at her desk, staring into space. What a meeting. She closed her eyes. Marge had lied. Flat out lied about her overtime.  Here we find out what the meeting was about and realize that Cathy is upset or depressed by Marge's behavior.  Remember...you are walking a tightrope, balancing between too much and too little information. Telling the readers everything is way too much. If they can't figure out what's going on, you're giving us too little information.

Compare the 'too much' of Cathy sat at her desk, depressed, thinking of the unpleasant meeting she just went through with her associate.  This is mostly information about the story, we are not sharing the story with Cathy.  When we see her slump at her desk and overhear her thoughts about the lying Marge, we know just as much if not more, but we figured it out from what was going on 'on stage'.  We don't yet know why this upsets her, but we certainly get the emotional sense of the moment, from her slump, her closed eyes, backed up by the confirmation of her thoughts.

Rae:   sometimes I don't understand the correct mix between telling and showing. That is such a fine line.

Mary Rosenblum:  All of writing is a fine line Rae.   There's no recipe to follow. You have to learn the right balance by 'feel'. That's why it's so critical to write often and a lot.  

Rae:   It takes me edit after edit to get it the way I want it, and even then it doesn't always feel right.

Mary Rosenblum:  You don't get better by reading about doing it, or thinking about doing it, or doing it once in awhile. You get better by doing it doing it doing it....and trying to do it better every time.

Rae:   then there is hope for me after all. lol.

Mary Rosenblum:  Sure there is, Rae.  It’s  very hard, always. You are seeing everything that you write, it's so clear, it's so three dimensional, the characters are so real! The TOUGH part is to translate all that to your readers.  You learn by doing, by handing your stuff to readers, listening to what they say and asking them questions about what they got from the story.

LtSonya:  any good questions we should ask our readers to see if we're 'getting' the right mix?

Mary Rosenblum:  Sure, LT. Ask they what they saw. Ask them if they wanted more anywhere. Ask them if they ran into slow spots.  Readers are not particularly good critiquers until they learn to be. Ask about anything that you're not sure of.

Reece:  I like to mentally stand in my characters place so I see it their way and feel it their way, I think that helps

Mary Rosenblum:  It certainly does, Reece.  That's exactly what I do all the way through every scene.  And then I 'weight' my language with the words that reinforce my character's emotional state.  Is she tense, is she lonely, is she frightened, is she angry?  What she notices and how she thinks of what she sees give all that away to the readers.

Reece:  what posture would she have while she feels that way

Mary Rosenblum:  Exactly.  But do that from the inside...what is SHE aware of doing?

Reece:  right

Mary Rosenblum:  Don't put the readers outside the scene to watch her from a distance.   Carolyn tiptoed into the living room. Her journal was gone. She sagged onto the sofa, buried her face in her hands.  Any question about mood here?   Carolyn marched into the living room. Her journal was gone. She closed her eyes, fists clenched, took a deep breath.  And now?

Zave:  angry

Mary Rosenblum:  Feel sorry for the person who took it when she catches up to him/her!

Reece:  lol

Mary Rosenblum:   But compare to this:  Carolyn went into the living room. Her journal was gone. She was horrified.  Or:  Carolyn went into the living room and her journal was gone. She was furious.  

Julia:  Boring

Mary Rosenblum:    So look at the mood words I used: tiptoes, sagged, buried her face in her hands.  marched, fists clenched, deep breath.

Reece:  makes a big diff

Mary Rosenblum:    Boring yes, Julia, and this is what I usually see in a novice manuscript. Because as you write the scene YOU the author sees all that behavior. The shorthand on the page is enough for you the author. But to a reader who can't see the visual scene in your mind, it's boring.

Belinda:  lets the reader know exactly the mood of the character

Mary Rosenblum:    Yep, Belinda. Everybody writes in shorthand when they start....shorthand for what they see in their heads. I did, too.

Julia:  telling what happened as opposed to showing what actually happens.

Mary Rosenblum:   Exactly Julia.  Learning to write well means learning to stop using shorthand and let the readers see the same scene you do.

Julia:  that's why a story is so much more interesting when the reader feels like he's right there watching it open up before him

Mary Rosenblum:   Yes, Julia.

Rae:  right

Mary Rosenblum:    You get transported into that story and you get to share it, you get to be there.  What you mostly learn as a writer is how to make that happen for a reader.

LtSonya:  Would you recommend us just getting the scene on paper, and then adding mood words (or at least, better words then we wrote initially)?

Mary Rosenblum:    Absolutely, Sonya. Do NOT focus on those word details in a first draft.  You'll drive yourself right into writers block!   Get the story down then make it work.  The more you do this, the better you'll get at using strong words the first time. But in the beginning, let that be a revision process.