Writing again...

I’ve been writing lately. I took a break while I have something at the editor. That’s my excuse to play a ridiculous amount of Fallout 4. Don’t judge me! I’m about to settle in and write some more but I noticed something in a book I’d read recently and I tried it. I haven’t heard back from the editor yet if I overplayed my hand at it or not and maybe it’s subtle enough. It was subtle when I encountered it and I only noticed it because I was looking for it.

In a scene there are things that set the mood, the tone, that have nothing to do with the characters and this author I read used the sun and lighting to set the mood. The sun could be BEATING down on them, dancing on the waters, warming their shoulders, setting softly on the horizon. What the sun was doing, every time it was mentioned, was the tone of the scene. The sun set the stage and the mindset for what was going to happen next.

Now, for me to have noticed it I think it may have been used maybe one time too often, or too close to a previous time and I did something similar but used it sparingly.

It was a cool writing device I’d never considered before. Most scenes have lighting, and describing the lighting in a way that sets the mood seems like an obvious idea. It wasn’t one that had occurred to me before now though.

Yet another tool in the writer’s tool box.