Writing is dear to my soon-to-be self-published heart! As a skill as well as a talent, writing benefits from frequent regular practice and ongoing education. Author Joseph Carrabis shares his thoughts about the craft…
“How to Use Atmosphere in Your Writing” by Joseph Carrabis
Writers are told to use atmosphere in their stories. What is atmosphere?
Writing texts define atmosphere as …the presenting of physical details so as to create an emotional reaction in the reader. Emotional reaction is what allows the reader to identify and empathize with characters in the story.
Consider the line “Eric stopped as Julia entered a copse of ancient, dark boled trees” from a horror story I’m working on.
The details relevant to Atmosphere are “stopped” and “a copse of ancient, dark boled trees.” The word “stopped” tells us Eric doesn’t want to do something and what he doesn’t want to do is follow Julia into “a copse of ancient, dark boled trees.”
I hope readers experience some tension, some foreboding, and at the same time want to read more to learn 1) why Eric stops and 2) what happens to Julia in the copse.
Creating reader emotional reaction is important because you want the reader involved, engaged. The line Eric stopped as Julia entered a copse of ancient, dark boled trees should make the reader sympathize more with Eric than Julia because Eric is showing caution while Julia is entering that copse of ancient, dark boled trees and people (in their heart of hearts) tend to favor caution.
That sense of confinement, foreboding, discomfort, ill-at-easeness comes from the words copse (a dense growth of trees), ancient (anything ancient’s going to either be very, very good or very, very bad), dark (it’s going to be bad), and boled (even if you don’t know what the word means it just sounds like something that’ll hurt you) to create a malevolent atmosphere.
A longer version of this piece is available at Atmosphere is….
About me: I’m boring and dull. Hopefully, my fiction isn’t. Learn more about me here and get my fiction here.
Does atmosphere enhance your writing?
Happiness Between Tails by da-AL 
Oooo I like this. I find that atmosphere, especially in all the American crime/thriller books I read, can be very important. You want to feel what the characters are feeling, get the tense of tension and foreboding that Carrabis talks about; as a reader, you want to want to keep reading and see what happens next, and it’s the build up of atmosphere that does that and carries you along. xx
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I continue to work at achieving effective “atmosphere” in my writing.
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Thank you, da-AL for the presentation of Joseph Carrabis. I checked out the links, very interesting. I doubt that he is boring and dull though … 😉
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Neither do I lol
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I never thought about it really, but it is very logic, when you explain it.
In your example I would be on the Julia team, because she seems to be in danger, even if it is her own fault, but Eric does nothing to try and stop her … 😉
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Interesting. I actually studied HP Lovecraft to learn atmosphere.
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Now that’s interesting, Lloyd 🙂
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He had a way of building atmosphere into a story. The technique works regardless of the genre. So, instead of describing an encounter with Cthulu I apply the technique to describe a walk in the forest or taking a break by the river etc.
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No wonder your posts are so vivid, not merely the photos ❤
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Thank you ☺
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