by Joslyn Chase |
Atmosphere matters. You might be someone who will pay a premium to eat at a restaurant with a certain ambience or buy a house in a setting that supports a particular feeling. But how do you use atmosphere in your book?
In like manner, your reader won’t remember every word you wrote, but if you infuse the story with atmosphere, they will remember the way it made them feel.
But how can you weave atmosphere into your story without making it feel forced? How can your story’s atmosphere evoke an emotional response and leave a lasting impression on your readers? How can you leverage this literary technique to enhance that feeling?
A strong sense of atmosphere figures into the works of William Shakespeare. Edgar Allan Poe mastered atmosphere in poems like The Raven and his haunting tales of suspense. J.K. Rowling managed it well in the Harry Potter series.
And you can learn it too.
There are many literary devices and elements of fiction a writer uses to impact the atmosphere of a literary work, including figurative language, word choice, similes, and personification. In this post, we’ll examine how point of view and genre considerations help to set the mood and establish atmosphere.Â
by Joslyn Chase |
So you want to know how to write a suspense novel. I could tease you with this, play out the line, dangle the carrot tantalizingly in front of you. But I won’t.
I’ll just tell you outright that suspense is my baby, my favorite of all the genres. If you’ve ever experienced those delicious moments as a reader, when your heart is slamming around in your chest, your palms are sweaty, and you can’t turn the pages fast enough, you’ll know what I mean by suspense.
by Joslyn Chase |
So you want to know how to write a mystery novel. I’m delighted to hear it. I’ve been a mystery lover since I hid behind the Lincoln Logs in Mrs. Jenkins third grade classroom so I could finish my first Nancy Drew, undisturbed. Mystery hooked me that day, and has been leading me around by the nose ever since.
by Joslyn Chase |
A thriller is not just a rollercoaster ride, but like a whole day at a theme park with head-of-the-line privileges. Ride after wild ride with maybe just enough down time to eat a corndog and take a bathroom break. The necessary ingredients for a thriller include conflict, tension, and suspense, all tied up in a nice, twisty package.
by Joslyn Chase and Sarah Gribble |
Whether you’re self publishing or you have a traditional publisher, it’s up to you to sell your books. Email marketing is the number one way to sell books. But in order to use email marketing effectively, you first have to gather a list of email addresses, a group of readers who want to hear from you.
Struggling to build your list? Try this.
