Writing For A Mood

[numituwi]

Good evening everyone!

This isn't really much of a question for help as it is a question asking what everyone else does to write for moods within their stories. Please don't be shy and put whatever input you'd like!

For myself, I like to play certain types of music that matches a scene I'm about to write. Or I eat certain foods that evoke a specific memory that can be used in the writing. (Did you know food memory association is a psychology thing? It's so interesting!)

[Dovahkitteh]

Music is certainly a fantastic way to help one get into the mindset of a particular mood. I had a whole playlist called "COB" just for thematic music when I was writing Chess of Blades. It can be a little dangerous at times, though; I went through an retrowave phase and was worried listening to pounding 80s synths would somehow bleed into COB's Victorian atmosphere

Ambient sound generators are also amazing. I highly recommend MyNoise, which has a great and growing selection of ambient sounds from forests to city spaces to more abstract, tonal drones. I love the forest and church ones especially, they really transport you to another place when you're writing.

I find reading material centered around a certain time period or theme that I'm trying to replicate is pretty helpful, especially if your setting is one grounded in history. For example, while trying to capture the grittiness of the poor and downtrodden in 18th century England, I read/am reading a book that covers a lot of dark content from that period, which helps put me in the mood to write similar content.

Finally, just looking at pictures can be really helpful, too. I've got "inspiration" folders of pictures for my projects that're just filled with images that immediately evoke an atmosphere in my mind. If you have two monitors or just a wide screen, keeping one visible while writing is a very valid method.

[nangke]

I'm not so much for eating to evoke a mood, but making sure I have tea or ice water at the ready is one of the things I do to physically set up my writing space.

I guess I've got a few playlists that I've been using heavily lately. One has some classical music, some Twin Peaks tracks, and some Alan Wake tracks. Another is outrun synthwave (mostly the Hotline Miami soundtracks). I've got a third that I might fall back to eventually that has classical-ish-sounding or otherwise instrumental music from various anime. (Lots from Utena, but also newer stuff like Natsume Yuujinchou, Ao no Exorcist, Haikyuu, and Flying Witch.) When I don't want to fiddle with what I listen to too much, any of the above are what I listen to. Anything with lyrics is potentially too distracted, but when I'm not pressed to produce a certain word count and I want to get my energy up, I might listen to something non-instrumental.

[BlackMagnolia]

I generally set a track to listen to and compose each sentence to the playing of the instruments. So when the scene is painstakingly written, it fits like a compact jigsaw of atmosphere. Word choice and style is also paramount.

[Mutive]

I try to read other stories with a mood similar to the one I want to create. Then I pay attention to what gives it the mood - the word choices, sentence length, etc.