Struggling with Mood, Tone and Setting in Writing Fiction


Let's try Courier today. What the heck. I'm going to be looking at LOT of Courier in the next few weeks, after I print out my completed novel, 'Rose and the Dandelion' and go through to do one final editing binge. The whole bloody thing needs to be formatted in Courier 12 type.

I've been trying to assess the recent spate of critiques I've garnered for my work that I've posted online, and judging from that, I need to heavily work on two things: Characterization and using a scene's Setting details to make the 'mood' for the scene.

In the past, I just stuck characters in a room or somewhere without any thought to how the setting adds to the overall mood and tone of the piece. I figured that those were something that came across in the action and dialogue, and the setting was little more than a staging area for the action. That all changed when I decided to do some research on how to write screenplays and movie scripts.

Basically a script or a screenplay is a bare-bones framework of a story, comprised mostly of dialogue and different instructions for the actors and director to work from when creating a play or movie. Scripts for plays contain a lot more useful information - how the lighting should be set, how the set on the stage and the props are used all in combination to create a 'mood' in order to draw the audience into the story and forget they're watching a play.

In a movie, the screenplay will usually contain information about the scene, usually time of day, which characters are present, etc. Some screenplays even give instructions on the camera angles on the characters, which directors typically ignore. A director will shoot the movie his own way, combining specialized camera angles, music, lighting, editing, etc. to create suspense or the air of romance - whatever. Basically, all those components work together like different instruments in a symphony to create the mood. It's simply a matter choosing what effects to add where, and at what time. Even furniture and other objects in a given room have their part to play. With a short story or novel, it's not quite that easy, since the reader can't actually 'see' what's going on. You have to enable them to visualize it in their mind's eye and feel the tension in their gut.

When I sit down to write, I usually have a basic idea of what's going to happen in a fictional piece and then I begin typing and somehow a story comes together. There are times when I start writing and I have no idea where it's going, and I'm just as much in the dark about the outcome as a reader would be as they're reading on. Once the piece is blown out and up on the screen, then it's time to go back and start modifying or removing things that sound 'off' and correct grammar stuff. One thing I've been ignoring is making sure that the setting enhances the given scene. Sure, I've covered that in the obvious circumstance, like if I want a scene dark and depressing, I put the characters in a dark and depressing place. But for lighter moments, I'm choosing places that just don't work. If two characters are arguing over something, then I should put them in a stressful place, like a busy subway station or maybe a loud, frenetic nightclub. These things are important for sensory input and creating an overall feeling that enhances the emotions for the reader, ramming home the point that the scene is trying to get across.

I've been watching a bunch of movies, one after another (decent movies - not 'B' grade crap), just to see how the director has done it there. The most recent flick I just watched (a few minutes prior to writing on this blog), 'Gothika' with Halle Berry, is full of key setting information. Granted, it's supposed to be a dark, dreary and scary movie, but I started noticing the subtle things, little bits and pieces that just added that extra 'something' to the atmosphere to suit a given scene.

For instance, in the beginning of the movie, she's in a dark, creepy mental institution/prison and there's eerie music and a storm going on outside. Using storms to create tension and a sense of doom is done quite a bit in movies and written fiction, but the storm in Gothika is unique - with emphasis on the fact that it's loaded with heavy rain. Lots of 'falling water' imagery is used in just about all the really tense scenes. I considered what the effect the director was going for with the heavy rain. It was there not just as a plot device (she reaches a roadblock and the road is washed out, so she must travel over a rickety bridge to get home and meets the ghost of Rachel), but it also gives the sense of heavy oppression and things spinning out of control, which of course they do as the movie progresses.

Later on, when she's locked away for the murder of her husband, she's stuck in a shadowy cell with a glass door and there is no real 'color' in the scene at all, just varying shades of blue and gray. Even Berry's skin has a bluish tinge to it. (Again, the 'watery' effect, just in metaphor). The ghost's presence is made obvious with the flickering lights, and I think the director overdid that a little, but he did well by choosing flourescent lights - they are creepy when they're flickering and humming, about to go out. The shades of blue and gray set the mood of her being in dire straits and highlighted her hopelessness, and was very effective in sharing that feeling with the viewer.

The shower scene was gripping - it too was dark, close and uncomfortable. The showers mimicked the rain in a way. The nurse even tells her to 'wash away her sins,' lending yet another aspect to the use of water in the scene. You know as you're watching that no matter how much she stands beneath the water, the situation is utterly hopeless because everyone still thinks she's crazy. There are also a couple of close-up shots where a solitary tear rolls down Berry's face. Even that was a water-related image geared to evoke emotion. Later on, when she escapes the prison and goes back to her house and the scene of the murder, the 'normality' of the house when she first enters struck me. It seemed for a moment that nothing happened, but then, she sees the bloody footprints on the stairs. Outside it's dark, but the rain has stopped, a subtle signal that revelation is coming her way. She drives to their property out in the boondocks and the sun is rising as she finds the hidey-hole in the barn where her husband and his friend have been torturing women on videotape. The sun is a long-standing symbol of revelation, of things 'brought out into the light.' That thought occurred to me when I watched the scene, simultaneously wondering why the director didn't film the scene at night, when things would be darker and scarier. But, I realized that even the time of day played a part in creating the rising suspense in that scene. The sun was just as important to the scene as the old farming tools and scythes hanging in the barn. As the sun rose on Halle Berry's character and her grisly discovery, a lightbulb finally went on in my head about mood and setting.

When I go back to do a final rewrite on 'The Rose and the Dandelion,' I'll probably be making some setting changes. I can think of a couple places right now in the novel that will need to be reworked with more appropriate setting and mood in mind.

I do learn something new every day, and each day my writing gets a little more worth reading.

Writing Super-Short Stories

(And why I can't write anything in less than 7,500 words)


The shortest story I've ever written is 1,500 words, and I don't think I quite fit it all into the 250 words per page format. So, in reality, it might have been 1,700 words. I'd sent it off last Christmas to the Writer's Digest 'Short Shorts' contest. It didn't win, but that may have been because A., I couldn't write to save my ass at the time, and B., the story was too long.

I just submitted a 'Fifteen Minute Mystery' to one of my writing groups for critique and it flopped. I came to the conclusion that I can't write a story that's shorter than 5 or 6 thousand words. In a word, I just gave up on writing in the mystery genre altogether. There's always a loose thread somewhere that I miss, or my logic just doesn't work. I love the genre, but I don't always think things through clearly enough to wrap things up in a satisfactory manner.

As for short stories, the plot must be focused around one particular event, center around basically one character, and have the usual rising action, climax and denouement. (Sort of like sex, isn't it?)

I enjoy writing short stories, but there's not much of a market for them, thanks to TV and video games. People just don't take the time to read them anymore, unless they're one of the few thousand people on the Net that are into critique groups. I think critique groups are the last bastion of this sort of storytelling, where an unknown person can present a story and have strangers read it, then offer comment. Then again, people will read a story if it's free. It's got to be damned good if they're paying for it by purchasing a magazine. The last few places that still buy short stories are the sci-fi, mystery and lit-fic magazines out there, and even those aren't doing too well. I'm sure romance has a good stronghold - you can still find a romance tucked into the pages of Cosmo and similar pub's. If there's anything I can't write, it's a romance. I've tried and the end result was horrible. My best success with short stories came in a horror piece I wrote that won a couple of awards on Writing.com and other sites. That story is titled, 'Getting Their Kicks on Route 666.' That one's about witches and skinwalkers in the northern New Mexico desert terrorizing people caught out on Route 666 (The Devil's Highway) after dark. Horror seems to be my forte, and I might stick with it. The problem is finding something that hasn't already been done a hundred times over.

There isn't much out there that is 'scary' anymore.

I once read a short story that had a lot of potential to be scary, but wasn't. It was about a man whose kitchen appliances kept coming to life and moving around on their own. The story petered out though; the appliances just went silent, and the MC went back to his daily life routine. I wanted them to attack or something, just to make things interesting. I thought about trying to rewrite that story with my own take on the same situation. But then, I came across Stephen King's story about the machines that come to life and take over the world. That pretty much tossed that bright idea out the window. No one can do horror better than The Master.

So, when writing short stories, I turned to things I understood - phobias and mental illness. I tried to bring phobias to life through 'Serpent in the Sky.' Some people liked it, and a lot of people didn't. (Actually, all my UK friends liked it). Americans, though, they want in-your-face action, and I just can't do that. I think people from the UK enjoy reading short stories and are willing to read a less-than-in-your-face type of story as long as there's a good payoff at the end.

So, what does that leave? Novels. I can write a novel - there's plenty of room to stretch out and let the characters breathe. I can't think in microcosm, which is what is needed for a decent short. I've tried.

I may work some more on 'Into the Twilight,' a novel I'm working on which seems to have have gone over well with the crit groups. I know where that story is going - it's based on a short story I wrote, titled 'The Screamer's Club.' I wanted it to be a novel of suspense and it's doing the job so far. The first chapter needs some work, but then that always happens. I have some kind of mental block when it comes to opening stories - I can't write anything that grips the reader right away. Well, maybe I ought to quit whining and get on with it. I promised myself that this year I'd submit a publish-worthy novel, somehow, some way. Sooner or later, I'll hit on one, I hope.