The Mood
You know, what makes story creation a tough process is... well, many things. But the one thing that always catches me off guard is creating the mood.
You see, the mood of your story is basically the story's feel. If you don't have a good feel of a story, you can't get invested. Think of it like having a meal. You spend all of this time cooking, you put all the ingredients together, slap it on the place, and what do you get? A JUMBLED MESS.
But it doesn't have to be like that. What you should be doing is focusing on making that food FEEL good on top of tasting good. Anyone can slap a bunch of ingredients together, but can they do it in a way that makes the food feel special? Its the same with storytelling. You can just slap a bunch of words together, but that won't make it feel right.
Creation of the good mood requires the perfect setting. What setting does your story take place in? Is it in a neighborhood? Is it in a school? A dingy alley? Or maybe its in a desolate, crime-riddled city! Picture the place in your head and try to flesh it out as you go along. Who are the people that live there? What's their backstory? (Okay, maybe don't go that for. This isn't the pre-Disney Star Wars Expanded Universe.)
Once you do that, you think that's it right? WRONG!
Next, like all stories, you need characters, a theme, and a goal. That goal can be anything, even something ridiculous. Just look at Hollywood! Their stories are RIDICULOUS! But they do create interesting moods. In literature, however, words make the reader. Certain words just hit the nail on the head and describe the perfect atmosphere in a chapter and the scene in question.
Think like on this word wheel:
Every word seen here just oozes with feeling. It makes me just want to write right now!
Descriptive words can create an illusion in the mind of how a character feels about a significant situation. I use this type of writing a lot to create various moods between each character. Every character, even ones with a basic personality, get descriptive words that describe who they are and what they do. The same can apply to the various settings they encounter.
Mood not only helps create experience for the writer, but it can improve the experience for you. Always remember, mood doesn't have to be constant, but should be ever-present.
~Be Toontastic!
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