How to Write a Strong Atmosphere

[Music] you hey everyone I'm shaylen here with Reed Z and today let's talk about creating atmosphere in your writing ama sphere is definitely one of my favorite techniques or components of a story so I'm really excited to talk about it today Before we jump into the actual tips I do think it would be good to make a distinction here and that's the difference between atmosphere and tone these words are often used interchangeably but they mean different things one can definitely affect the other but there is a distinction so today we're going to be talking about atmosphere atmosphere is the feeling emotion or mood that the story of folks when people say that a story was very atmospheric they tend to mean that it was immersive that there was a strong feeling attached to it a strong sense of place tone is the stories of you towards itself you could have the same story with the same events with a serious tone versus a satirical tone so we're not going to be talking about how to create tone in this video we're gonna be focusing on atmosphere but tone definitely plays a role in atmosphere and vice-versa tip number one choose your word choice carefully diction is a really really important aspect of atmosphere if anything it might be the most so for example let's say that you were describing a tree here's the same description with two very different atmospheric qualities affected only by the word choice a tree with a spiderweb of gnarled branches jetted against the horizon an abandoned bird's nest hung from one of its withered limbs it's a little spooky it's a little creepy and in this kind of description this kind of diction were carried through longer it could create a very creepy atmosphere but we could contrast it with description of the same tree written like this a tree with a lace of fine branches bloomed against the horizon a bird's nest sat cradled in one of the baths this is the same description I did leave out that the business was abandoned kind of threw off the vibe that I was going for with that one but it really is ultimately the same description the same details affected only by the word choice number two use proper names that fit the atmosphere character names as well as the proper names given to places can actually have a huge effect on both the atmosphere and the tone of a piece now this is definitely one of those cases where we're talking a little more about tone but it's going to affect the atmosphere quite greatly the types of proper names that you choose can really have a big effect on the tone of a piece and therefore on its atmosphere giving characters very familiar names can create more of a sense of grounded realism in a piece where as giving them stranger almost fantastical names can give the story a more whimsical quality in the novel you too can have a body like mine by Alexandra Kleeman the three main characters go by the names a B and C which creates this kind of surreal quality to the story you can do the same thing with the proper names of places everything from streets to restaurants to the name of a park to the name of a town if you use proper names that are quite off beat and strange or quirky it creates a very different tone to the story then again if you go for a more grounded realism appro number three use all of the senses this is a classic tip for writing description and it's so important for creating atmosphere when people talk about books with strong atmosphere one of the most common words they use is immersive people say this story was immersive and one of the key ways to immerse readers in your setting is to use all of the senses in your description a lot of the time readers kind of stop at just the visuals but there's so much more that you can unpack from an image than just what the character is seeing sound is a great quality to introduce into your writing it's very rare that we find ourselves in a place of absolute total silence so introducing sound into your description really adds a quality of life as well taste smell and touch our senses that are often neglected in a description of just setting if you're describing a scene by the ocean everything from the feeling of cold slipping under a character's collar to the taste of salt and Brian in the air these really bring the reader into the setting in a very tactile way and make it very atmospheric number four think about your color palette this is one of my absolute favorite tips for creating atmosphere it works really well in just a short story where you're probably only going to visit limited settings but even in a longer novel it's really useful to think about the color palette of your novel what do you think about your novel what colors you seem to see and a lot of the imagery my current novel project is set in a logging town in the woods so there's a lot of green I always envision the sky as gray try to narrow in on your color palette and use those colors throughout your description you don't have to just describe the colors directly so if you feel like your book has a very blue color palette you might use specific shades of blue in your description for example describing the sky as a certain shade of blue but you might also just use a lot of objects that you associate with that color you might have a lot of descriptions of water even though a glass of water isn't blue it's still something that most readers will associate with the color palette of your book number five tie descriptions to the characters emotion such an important part of atmosphere isn't just that there's a strong sense of place but that there's a strong feeling attached to it it's really important to not just think about what the character is seeing but also what the character is feeling and how that's going to impact how they see the world the character is standing kind of on a cliff side with the ocean this could be very morose and lonely it could even be kind of like violent and menacing if the ocean is really stormy or it could be really peaceful kind of a tranquil moment for the character you could really describe this exact same setting with a lot of different emotions depending on what your character is currently feeling go back to the first tip in this video and choose your diction really carefully in order to evoke the emotion that your character is feeling through the setting there is a line here between using the setting to evoke emotion and pathetic fallacy which can become melodramatic pathetic fallacy is when the natural world takes on human equality and emotion and it can become quite melodramatic if a character is say sad and we're really hit with an overload of imagery like the sky was weeping rain you don't need to explicitly describe the natural world as being personified in a lot of cases you can just use word choice that accurately reflects the characters current emotional state number six is to use specific details I've said it once I've said it more than once I'll say it again specific details are such an integral part of strong writing we've got an entire video on using specificity so I'll leave a link to that in the cards and in the description if you want to learn a little more about this technique but essentially you want to choose specific details rather than just painting the world and very broad stroke remember the details that you choose can have a huge impact on the atmosphere of a piece just like how you might choose words to describe a setting in an emotionally accurate way you can also pick out setting details that are accurate to the feelings you want to evoke which details you decide to plant in the setting and also which details your character picks up on can say a lot about the atmosphere of a piece if there's a description of a house and the character focuses more on the rusted bike sitting on the lawn this is going to give a different impression than if a character is describing the same house but notes that the windows are Chinese diamonds there's something kind of sad about a rusted bike abandoned on someone's dead lawn there's a lot of connotations of kind of loss of innocence or the abandonment of childhood we think of a bike has to be rode around as kids there's a lot of kind of thematic connotations there you could put that kind of detail in any given description of any given house and it would evoke something quite specific it's really useful when you're looking for specific details to do research instead of just saying that there was a flowerbed look up types of flowers and say what kind of flower looking at photographs can also be really useful to pick out specific details that you wouldn't otherwise notice when you're just trying to go off your imagination and finally tip number seven is to use sentence length and sentence rhythm now of course you do want to vary your sentence length throughout a piece but in certain given paragraphs you can really use that to evoke certain feelings short choppy sentences feel kind of uncomfortable sometimes if you throw in a couple sentence fragments it can start to feel a little jarring compared to a very long flowing sentence which might be a little more relaxing so to summarize atmosphere is the feeling that a story of vote and there are essentially two ways to create it through what you say and how you say it you can create atmosphere through specific and precise word choice including even the proper names of a place along with your sentence for them but you can also create it through the details that you choose the way you integrate all of the senses into a description and the colors and emotions that you tie throughout a piece so that's how to create atmosphere in your writing thank you so much for watching remember to subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss any new videos from us we've got new writing editing and publishing tips every Tuesday and Friday until next time [Music]

Channel: Reedsy

Views: 31,633

Keywords: how to write a book, authortube, writing tips, writing advice, writing tip, self publishing, self publishing tips, how to self publish a book, writing, atmosphere, setting, how to write atmosphere, how to create atmosphere, how to write mood, how to write tone, tone, mood

Id: x47forrPXoY

Length: 9min 3sec (543 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 14 2020