Many new authors use the word mood interchangeably with atmosphere when describing a scene or passage. This is because mood and atmosphere are like conjoined twins. They are individuals but are difficult to separate as they share some critical functions. This is the layer of worldbuilding that lies just below the surface, a component of the inferential layer of the narrative.
Mood is long-term, a feeling residing in the background, going almost unnoticed. Mood shapes (and is shaped by) the emotions evoked within the story.
Atmosphere is also long-term but is sometimes more noticeable as it is a component of worldbuilding. Atmosphere is the aspect of mood that is conveyed by the setting.
Emotion is immediate and short-term and is also subtle and lurking in the background. The characters feelings affect the reader’s experience of the overall atmosphere and mood.
Robert McKee tells us that emotion is the experience of transition, of the characters moving between a state of positivity and negativity. “Story” by Robert McKee. Emotions are fluid, generating energy, and give life to the narrative.
I look for books where the author shows emotions in a way that feels dynamic. Our characters are in a state of flux, and their emotional state should also be. When the character’s internal struggle is turbulent, ranging from positive to negative and back, their story becomes personal to me.
Mood is a significant word serving several purposes. It is created by the setting (atmosphere), the exchanges of dialogue (conversation), and the tone of the narrative (word choices, descriptions). It is also affected by (and refers to) the emotional state of the characters—their personal mood.
Undermotivated emotions lack credibility and leave the reader feeling as if the story is flat. In real life, we have deep, personal reasons for our feelings, and so must our characters.
A woman shoots another woman. Why? What emerges as the story progresses is that a road accident occurred three years before in which her child was accidentally struck and killed by the woman she murdered.
My worldbuilding for that story should convey an atmosphere of shadows, sort of like a “film noir.” Everything my characters see and interact with should be symbolic, conveying a range of dark emotions in the opening pages in which the gun is fired, and the woman falls dead. If I do it right, I’ll have intense emotion and high drama.
In real life, people have reasons for their actions, irrational though they may be. The root cause of a person’s emotional state drives their actions. In the case of the above story, the driving force is a descent into a mad desire to avenge what was an unintentional tragedy. Every aspect of the setting should reflect that intense anger, the deep-rooted hatred, and the unfairness of it all.
These visuals can easily be shown. Grief manifests in many ways and can become a thread running through the entire narrative. That theme of intense, subliminal emotion is the underlying mood and it shapes the story:
- Many people are affected by the murder, family members on both sides, and also the law enforcement officers who must investigate it.
How can we show it? We use worldbuilding to create an atmosphere of gloom. Outside each window, whenever a character must leave their home or office, the days are dark, damp, and chill. The lack of sunshine and the constant rain wears on all the characters involved on either side of the law.
- The setting underscores each of the main characters’ personal problems and evokes a general sense of loss and devastation.
Which is more important, mood or emotion? Both and neither. Characters’ emotions affect their attitudes, which in turn shape the overall mood of a story. In turn, the atmosphere of a particular environment may affect the characters’ personal mood. Their individual attitudes affect the emotional state of the group.
As we have said before, emotion is the experience of transition from the negative to the positive and back again. Each evolution of the characters’ emotions shapes their conscious beliefs and values. They will either grow or stagnate.
This is part of the inferential layer, as the audience must infer (deduce) the experience. You can’t tell a reader how to feel. They must experience and understand (infer) what drives the character on a human level.
What is mood in literature? Wikipedia says mood is established in order to affect the reader emotionally and psychologically and to provide a feeling of experience for the narrative.
What is atmosphere? It is worldbuilding, created by the words we choose. We can feel it, but it is intangible. But atmosphere affects how the reader perceives the story. The way a setting is described contributes to the atmosphere, and that description is a component of worldbuilding.
Atmosphere is the result of deliberate word choices. It comes into play when we place certain visual elements into the scenery with the intention of creating an emotion in the reader.
- Tumbleweeds rolling across a barren desert.
- Waves crashing against cliffs.
- Dirty dishes resting beside the sink.
- A chill breeze wafting through a broken window.
We show these conjoined twins of mood and atmosphere through subtle clues: odors, ambient sounds, and the surrounding environment. They are intensified by the characters’ attitudes and emotions. Mood and atmosphere are organic components of the environment but are also an intentional ambiance.
As we read, the atmosphere that is shown within the pages colors and intensifies our emotions, and at that point, they feel organic. Think about a genuinely gothic tale: the mood and atmosphere Emily Brontë instilled into the setting of Wuthering Heights make the depictions of mental and physical cruelty seem like they would happen there.
Happy, sad, neutral—atmosphere and mood combine to intensify or dampen the emotions our characters experience. They underscore the characters’ struggles.
For me, as a writer, conveying the inferential layer of a story is complicated. Creating a world on paper requires thought even when we live in that world. We know how the atmosphere and mood of our neighborhood feels when we walk to the store. But try conveying that mood and atmosphere in a letter to a friend – it’s more complicated than it looks.
Showing what is going on inside our characters’ heads is tricky. We will go a little deeper into that next week.
However, there is an accessible viewpoint just at the entrance, and we can go there and just absorb the peace. Several years ago, I shot this photo from that platform.
Action and interaction – we know how the surface of a pond is affected by the breeze that stirs it. In the case of our novel, the breeze that stirs things up is made of motion and emotion. These two elements shape and affect the structural events that form the plot arc.
So, how can we use the surface elements to convey a message or to poke fun at a social norm? In other words, how can we get our books banned in some parts of this fractured world?
Creating depth in our story requires thought and rewriting. The first draft of our novel gives us the surface, the world that is the backdrop.
Beta Reading is the first look at a manuscript by someone other than the author. The first reading by an unbiased eye is meant to give the author a view of their story’s overall strengths and weaknesses so that the revision process will go smoothly. This phase should be done before you submit the manuscript to an editor. It’s best when the reader is a person who reads for pleasure and can gently express what they think about a story or novel. Also, look for a person who enjoys the genre of that particular story. If you are asked to be a beta reader, you should ask several questions of this first draft.
Editing is a process unto itself and is the final stage of making revisions. The editor goes over the manuscript line-by-line, pointing out areas that need attention: awkward phrasings, grammatical errors, missing quotation marks—many things that make the manuscript unreadable. Sometimes, major structural issues will need to be addressed. Straightening out all the kinks may take more than one trip through a manuscript.
A good proofreader understands that the author has already been through the editing gauntlet with that book and is satisfied with it in its current form. A proofreader will not try to hijack the process and derail an author’s launch date by nitpicking their genre, style, and phrasing. 
The problem that frequently rears its head among the Indie community occurs when an author who writes in one genre agrees to proofread the finished product of an author who writes in a different genre. People who write sci-fi or mystery often don’t understand or enjoy paranormal romances, epic fantasy, or YA fantasy.
Repeated words and cut-and-paste errors. These are sneaky and dreadfully difficult to spot. Spell-checker won’t always find them. To you, the author, they make sense because you see what you intended to see. For the reader, they appear as unusually garbled sentences.
At some point, your manuscript is finished. Your beta readers pointed out areas that needed work. The line editor has beaten you senseless with the 
Also, the two combine to help in deciding how long it will take to complete a task.
While I had finished the RPG game’s plot and the synopsis, I didn’t have some details of the universe and the world figured out. So, in a burst of creative predictability, I went astrological in naming the months. I thought it would give the player a feeling of familiarity.
Time has a tendency to be elastic when we are writing the first draft of a story where many events must occur. Sometimes, many things are accomplished in too short a period for a reader to suspend their disbelief.
What if your fantasy world uses leagues as a measure of distance? A league is 3.452 miles or 5.556 kilometers. Generally speaking, a horse can walk 32 miles or 51.5 K in a day.
Many readers have a route they walk or run daily to maintain their health. These readers will know how long it takes to walk ten blocks. They will also know how far a healthy person can walk in one hour on a good road.
The part of the world where I live has large tracts of forests, many wide rivers, and is mountainous, with numerous volcanos. Our roads are often winding and sometimes travel in switchbacks up and over many of these obstacles. It takes time to go places even though the original road-builders plotted the roads through the most accessible paths.
Travel and events take time. A calendar, either fantasy or the standard Gregorian calendar we use today, and a simple hand-drawn map will help you maintain the logic of your plot.
Sometimes, a first novel is well-received, with engaging characters and a plot arc that moves along to a satisfying conclusion. People want more, and so the series begins.
The episodic series is like a television series. Each novel has a new adventure for a previously established set of characters. In some ways, these are easiest to write, especially when each book features established characters in an established world. (Sorry about the repetition there.) Many cozy mysteries and fantasy series are episodic. They are an infinite series of standalone stories.
The story usually has a strong theme that unites the series. It might be a theme such as the hero’s journey or young people coming of age. Or it might follow the life of one main character and their sidekicks as they struggle to complete an arduous quest. 
Prequels are one of my favorite kinds of novels. I am always curious as to how the whole thing started.
Once you have figured out the entire arc of the series, make an outline of book one. This allows your creative mind to insert foreshadowing. This will happen via the clues and literary easter eggs that surface as the series goes on.
Next week, we will look at creating a calendar for stories set in a speculative fiction world. We will look at some of my failures and see why simpler is usually better.
Technically, I am a full-time writer. For about ten years after I retired from corporate America, I had regular office hours for writing. Nothing lasts forever, and now I am drawing on the habits I developed during my years as a hobbyist. I write when I can and devote the rest of my time to caring for my family.
So, let’s talk a little more about what we write. Most of us don’t intentionally write to preach to people, but the philosophies we hold dear do come out.
We each grow and develop in a way that is unique to us. Sometimes, we are hardened by our life experiences, and our protagonists have that jaded sensibility. Other times, we accept our own human frailties, and our protagonists are more forgiving.
The battles we fight on the home front don’t have to be serious all the time. Sometimes, they can be hilarious. When your spouse has Parkinson’s, life is like a 
Suddenly, some joker turns the blender on, and everything goes to hell. They turn it off, and you think, “Okay, disaster averted. It’s gonna be okay.”
Life is like a blended margarita. It’s all in how you look at it, so stay cool and enjoy the party for as long as it lasts.
Artist: Carl Julius von Leypold (1806–1874)
The more frequently you write, the more confident you become. Spending a small amount of time writing every day is crucial. It develops discipline, and personal discipline is essential if you want to finish a writing project.
Maybe you plan to write a novel “someday” but aren’t there yet. Writing random short scenes and vignettes helps develop that story without committing too much time and energy to the project. This is also a good way to create well-rounded characters.
However, 
The Lascaux Review is one of the best contests around. It is exceptionally open to writers who are just beginning their journey. Their fee is reasonable, $15.00 in every category, and submissions are accepted through Submittable. 
A way to get a grip on these concepts is what I think of as literary mind-wandering. For me, these ramblings hold the seeds of short stories.
I break down the word count to know how many words to devote to each act in the story arc. I allow around 25 words to open the story and set the scene. Then, I give myself about 50 – 60 for the heart of the story. That leaves me 10 – 25 words to conclude it.
Extremely short fiction is the distilled essence of a novel. It contains everything the reader needs to know and makes them wonder what happened next.
I have been busy on the domestic side of things and enjoying life as a Townie. Lovely Instacart delivers my groceries from any store I choose. If we have to be out after dark and it’s raining, I can’t see well, so Uber does the driving. We are living a life of luxury and grateful for it. I have a “passel” of grandbabies and great-grandbabies, so when I have nothing to write, I have needlework projects to keep me busy.
Writing drabbles means your narrative will be limited to one or two characters. There is no room for anything that does not advance the plot or affect the story’s outcome. Also, while a 100-word story takes less time than a 3,000-word story, all writing is a time commitment. I will spend an hour or more getting a drabble to fit within the 100-word constraint.
Artists: 
Life in the Realm of Fantasy 