Here’s a link referencing ideas: a fun exercise to try when you are very stuck. I wrote an interesting little story using this fun brainstorming technique, and it is a great way to get the juices flowing.
Here were my references:
Plot: Tangled
Genre: Fantasy
Characters: Raven Boys (Ronan + Gansey + Blue)
Theme: Progress destroying environment, price of knowledge
Anyway, on to the next step of outlining: MOOD
Mood is an important aspect to think about early in the writing because:
1.) It will influence your genre, which has its own specific guidelines, word counts, and tropes to be aware of. Knowing your genre will help you figure out your audience, which is important for how you will write.
2.) One of the main reasons for writing a story in the first place is to make someone feel something. Understanding what it is you want that reader to feel will help when it comes time to making important decisions in the writing process. All choices will be defined by that overall feeling, or mood.
Think, for example, of a house. You have so many options when it comes to describing the house:
– You could focus on the cheerful shrubs and the well-cared for lawn, the bursts of flowers dotting the neat cobblestone path that leads to the inviting front door.
– Alternatively, you could zoom in on the cracks in the pavement mirrored in the cracked windows, the peeling siding, the ruined stone pillars with an overgrown path between them leading to empty field and littered in pieces of trash left behind.
– Or, you could turn the lens to the crook of the eyebrow of a cornice, the blank watchfulness of the windows, the shadowed spaces beneath the eaves hiding secrets and the sensibly shut front door.
How would you know where to focus the lens, which words to choose when describing? Mood.
If you want your reader to feel uneasy, to have their pulses racing and their breath heavy, you wouldn’t choose words like dainty, or cheerful, or loved.
If you want your reader well-invested in a love story, you are going to want to choose words that promise that mood.
Knowing the mood upfront helps to establish the emotional tone of the novel. It prepares your readers for the journey you are about to lead them on, and helps you as the author reign in your creative license so each of your choices serves a purpose. Mood combined with your idea gives your story a premise.
Maggie Stiefvater is the queen of mood. She understands the emotion she wants the reader to feel and uses it to pull her readers through her story. I cannot recommend her seminar enough.
George Saunders falls back on emotion as the key to great storytelling, stating that the curiosity we evoke in the reader is what gets them to care. Read more here.
Activity: pick a chapter from any book that makes you feel something. Dissect it for the word choices the author uses, how they structure their sentences to evoke pacing (long, meandering walks or short, punchy runs), and the action/thoughts of the character as they move through the spaces presented. Each choice they made played toward the bigger goal of making you feel that emotion, no matter how subtle the choices.
I’d love to hear more about how you use mood, or book recommendations of stories that moved you!
emilyjaneestabrook.com 
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