by Angela Ackerman

Fun things can happen at writing conferences, especially after hours. In fact, a year ago I was winding up a conference with a drink along with a few others, and as the hour grew late, the interesting stories started to come out. You know, the ones spoken in a quiet voice: paranormal experiences, ghost stories. One writer passed on a bit of lore regarding the hotel we were in: one of the conference rooms was known to be haunted.

I perked up. She was speaking my love language.

And I wasn’t the only one. Someone asked for clarification on the conference room name, and then three of us stood, ready to investigate. We glanced about for staff who might try to dissuade us from poking around, but the common area was suitably quiet for the late hour.

Off we went to meet the mysterious Rundle room ghost.

We found the conference room unlocked and so slipped inside, giggling enough for women half our age. Someone had left the lights on, bathing the rose-cushioned chairs in a cheery glow. A wooden lectern stood at the front, presentation screens to either side, all ready for the next presentation. To all appearances, the room was empty save for us.

Right away I could see a big problem with the mission, so I crossed to the wall panel of light switches and snapped them off.  

A gasp shot out of the dark. Hmm. Maybe someone wasn’t quite as into this experience as I was?

A moment later this was confirmed. One of our trio exited with a, “Nope, I’m out.”

In my mind, my action was logical. What self-respecting ghost would emerge into this bright light? Better to turn those off and sit, breathing in the dark…waiting for the temperature to change…a sound that shouldn’t be there…a touch. Oh yeah. Creepy.

Did I believe in the Rundle ghost? No. But I was setting the mood so this would be more of an experience. And maybe it worked a little too well, because as the minutes stretched, the darkness began to crawl into my head. Every little noise sounded suspicious, and I grew slightly unnerved, wondering if I’d made a mistake.

Just as I altered the mood by flipping light switches, writers can do the same through strategic descriptive choices.

Emotionally speaking, light and shadow influence us, and it can influence both characters and readers. Places that seem familiar and safe by day can feel very different at night. Likewise, the mystery and uncertainty present in a murky locale will dissipate as the sun climbs the sky. When we change the quality and amount of light, we can shift the mood in our scene without changing the setting.

For example, consider a classic, L. M. Montgomery’s description of Birch Path, a recurring location in her Anne of Green Gables series:

It was a little narrow, twisting path, winding down over a long hill straight through Mr. Bell’s woods, where the light came down sifted through so many emerald screens that it was as flawless as the heart of a diamond.

We can easily envision this scene under the trees. The green-tinged sunlight gives the scene a lighthearted, cheerful feel, and though the season isn’t mentioned, late spring or summer is inferred, simply by referencing the light.

But the same path traveled later in the day by a character in another frame of mind can look and feel vastly different. Here is Birch Path again, traveled by a more mature Anne in the third book of the series:

Anne felt lonelier than ever as she walked home, going by way of the Birch Path and Willowmere. She had not walked that way for many moons. It was a darkly-purple bloomy night. The air was heavy with blossom fragrance—almost too heavy.

The darkly-purple light, combined with Anne’s loneliness and the cloying odors, give the scene a heavy, melancholy feel that wasn’t there before.

Because light and shadow lie within the realm of universal symbolism, people tend to respond to them in a feral way: well-lit areas are deemed safer, putting us at ease, while darker spots have more weight and feel heavier both on the body and the spirit.

When setting the mood for your scene, consider the lighting. How much light is there? Where does it come from? Is it hard or soft, comforting or blinding? Is it constant and totally revealing, or does it allow for shadows and hidden places? Questions like these will serve as a guide for how to light a scene to set the desired mood.

You can also draw upon personal symbolism—meaning derived based on a character’s personal interactions and history--if you’ve taken the time to set it up so readers pick up on its significance. Light itself may represent pain, exposure, risk, or danger to a character who lives safely below ground, or by the necessity of survival, is only able to come out at night. We need only look at vampire, werewolf, and demon fiction to see this played out within a story.

When you’re looking to steer the emotions of your characters and readers, use light and shadow, because they will do the work for you. (Weather has this ability, too!)

And what of the Rundle ghost, you ask? Well, after sitting in the dark for a few minutes asking if anyone was with us, we decided our otherworldly friend was a no-show. We left, but on the way out, met a maintenance man. After explaining our after-hours mission, he pointed us to a different conference room where an apparition was known to lurk. My fellow ghost hunter and I zipped up a floor to investigate, but again, it was a paranormal bust.

The tale does not end here, however. In that second conference room we ran into a housekeeper who shared two room numbers where the staff had seen things. But due to the late hour, we decided to call it a night and pick up the trail at next year’s conference.

This will be in two short months, so stay tuned…I may just have a ghost story of my own to share!

Do you use light and shadow to bring forward a specific mood? How did it impact your characters in the scene? 

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About Angela

Angela Ackerman is a story coach, international speaker, and co-author of the bestselling book, The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression, and its many sequels. Available in nine languages, her guides are sourced by US universities, recommended by agents and editors, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, and psychologists around the world. To date, this book collection has sold over a million copies. 

Angela is also the co-founder of the popular site Writers Helping Writers®, as well as One Stop for Writers®, a portal to game-changing tools and resources that enable writers to craft powerful fiction. Find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Top image by Writers in the Storm via Canva.