How to Use MOOD & EMOTION in Your Stories (Fiction Writing Advice)

i don't care if you're in the mood for it or not today we're going to be discussing mood within the context of your stories what's up guys my name is brandon mcnulty i'm a writer i'm the author of bad parts and welcome to my writing channel today we're going to be discussing mood within the context of storytelling and when i talk about mood i'm talking about the emotional temperature of a scene or series of scenes in your story and it's very important that you work a lot of different emotions into your story you attach these emotions to your scenes and you can work with plenty of different ones you could have scenes with a mood that is happy or miserable or fearful or relieving or excited or bored there are so many different possibilities and i recommend that you include as many as you can as long as it's within reason now here's a problem that a lot of writers face sometimes people will ask them what is the overall mood of your story and when they hear that question they often think that a story only needs one particular mood but that couldn't be further from the truth you need a bunch of them you need to vary things up and you need to add contrast in your story otherwise the emotions that you're trying to send through that story will have no impact whatsoever for instance if you decided you wanted to write like a horror story and you said that okay well i'm gonna open it up with a scary mood and then i'm gonna have the next scene in a scary mood i'm gonna have the whole story in a scary mood if you do that if you make it where everything is scary nothing will be scary and that's because there's no contrast there's no room to breathe there's no resetting of the palette for your readers same applies to any other genre if you're writing like a romance story and you open it up with a passionate scene and then another passionate scene and then the whole thing is passion none of it will be passion so you have to find balance and you have to find contrast i think what people should be asking writers instead of what is the mood of your story they should be asking how does the mood change again and again and again over the course of your story because that's what's important you need that variety you need that contrast and if we want to go back to that example of the horror story that opens up with like a scary scene a scary mood you can do that by all means have somebody get killed in the opening scene to set the tone that's great but in the next scene try something different try putting out there some kind of maybe a mournful scene maybe they're reacting to the death in that first scene or maybe you try something different you give us a hopeful scene or you give us a playful scene something to add plenty of contrast to the story whatever you do is fine but you need to realize that you can't just rely on one particular mood and stretch it out over the course of the story otherwise you'll lose your audience you want that variety in order to keep them engaged now i have an example from john wick on how the mood can change again and again over the course of the story but before i do that i want to give you one last piece of advice and i want to say to you that whenever you open up a story with one particular mood you should close it with the opposite if possible you're not always going to be able to do this but if you can try and have opposing moods at the beginning and the end of your story and there are plenty of great examples out there in popular stories for instance star wars opens up with a mood of desperation but it closes with one of triumph spider-man 2 opens up with a sense of discontentment but it closes with contentment because peter gets what he wants while still maintaining his responsibility as spider-man the movie terminator opens up with a sense of despair but it ends with one of hope and the movie jurassic park opens up with a sense of fear but it closes with a sense of relief i think any time you have a story that opens up with one particular emotion and closes with another you show a sense of change and it makes that story feel more meaningful so if you can do this by all means go for it now as promised i want to take a look at the movie john wick and i chose this as an example because john wick is a movie that doesn't have a lot of dialogue it doesn't have a very complicated plot it's just a pretty basic revenge thriller that is brought to a higher level by the way that the mood shifts over the course of the story so pay attention i'm going to give you some of the early scenes in this movie maybe the first half dozen or so just to give you a glimpse of how things change again and again over the early parts of the story so the opening scene of john wick is one that carries a mood of despair and defeat the first time we see john wick he's broken he's bloody he's battered things are not looking good for him it looks dark and this is how we are introduced to the character shortly after this introduction we get a shift in tone toward a mournful mood and this is because we get to see pictures of his dead wife we see him at the funeral there's a rainstorm that highlights that sense of mournfulness i think you know just people being dressed in black all of that contributes to that mournful mood but things shift shortly after that when jon receives a puppy from his late wife and she arranged for this puppy to be delivered while she was still alive and when he receives it there's a sense of hopefulness that that hopefulness takes over here he's in his house there's light there's there's light within the darkness here and we get the sense that john has a chance to be happy again he's not alone in this house anymore shortly after receiving the puppy the mood shifts again this time toward the emotion of uneasiness and this is when jon is at the gas station he encounters some russian mobsters and they seem to be threatening him and his dog we don't know what's going on just yet but we have this sense of uneasiness eventually that uneasiness pays off in terror in a following scene where john's house is broken into he's beaten up the dog is killed there's terror there's pain there's mourning and again that mournfulness plays up again in the scene where he has to bury his dog so mournfulness appears twice early on in the story but if you notice first it appears at the funeral and then we have scenes that are hopeful uneasy terrifying before we get that mournfulness again when he's burying the dog now after john buries the dog the mood shifts again toward one of vengefulness and this is one that appears a lot throughout the story but the first time it appears is here when he starts trying to track down information on the people who broke into his house he wants to go after them so he starts digging up his old weapons and then once his house is broken into again by people who are trying to kill him we get this sense of vengefulness and this is a move that is very strong within the story but it's only strong because we have other emotions that are giving us variety they're resetting the palate however you want to think of it and then before i wrap this up one more scene i want to mention is when john visits the continental hotel now this is the hotel where all the different assassins stay and when john returns here for the first time after retirement there is a mood of welcoming and this is because he's very he's well respected there people like him they're happy to see him again and i think this this mood of welcoming is very important at this stage of the story because there's so much vengefulness there's so much anger and you get something that is in sharp contrast to that with the welcoming mood so keep things like this in mind if you do have one particular emotion that is really dominating a point in your story ask yourself can i find an opposite that i can inject in there just to reset the palette for the audience so i hope this helps the important thing to remember is that when you're writing a story you need to be aware of your story's mood the emotional temperature and how it changes again and again over the course of your stories also remember to have opposite moods at the very beginning and the very end of your story in order to get the maximum impact question of the day in your current work in progress what is the mood that you open up the story with and what is the mood that you close the story with let us know in the comments section below thank you guys for watching if you want to put me in a good mood please pick up a copy of bad parts if you haven't already also be sure to check out my other videos hit the like and subscribe buttons for me share this video with a friend and as always remember to keep on writing

Channel: Writer Brandon McNulty

Views: 6,234

Keywords: Writing, Writing advice, Writing Tips, Fiction, Creative Writing, mood, tone, mood in fiction, mood in literature, storytelling, john wick, atmosphere, emotion, emotions, what is mood, what is mood in literature, mood vs tone, conveying emotion in writing, writing emotion, writing emotions in fiction, writing emotions in screenplay, evoke emotion, creating emotion, emotional impact, book, novel, screenplay, how to write a novel, writing advice for beginners, writing emotional scenes

Id: mFQ5h5rss9k

Length: 7min 33sec (453 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 22 2021