This is the Place: Setting the Mood in Fiction

It rained in California on Halloween. It's only rained on Halloween 5 times since 1987. It has a “remember when” vibe. Remember the year it rained, and we had to wear our jacket over our Spider-Man costume. The web shooters left disintegrating webs all over the place.  

Unusual moments feel like a freebie to a writer. It's a contrast to everything normal. That tension is built into the moment, setting the mood. It's the difference between " It was a normal day, and then all of a sudden...

My pup Charlie sat shivering in his bed; the rain tapped out its rhythm, and I watched the little drops eddy in a puddle on the patio behind him. He’s not a fan of the rain, or any cold, wet thing. 

“In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town named Forks exists under a near-constant cover of clouds. It rains on this inconsequential town more than any other place in the United States of America.” (Stephenie Meyer, Twilight)

And then there is this inexplicable place. It’s tied to every reason the story moves forward. It’s the character’s cloak that could not exist in any other setting.

In 2024, on a trip to Washington and Oregon, I got to experience the Pacific Northwest for the first time. It lived up to those Twilight vibes, but also The Goonies nostalgia.

The power of "place" was evident. It was unfamiliar familiarity.

You want to surround your reader with the cold chill and mist from the marine layer creeping at their feet.

This unusual moment for me was normal for everyone else who lived there.

“Fog eddies like smoke through the pines. A landscape that constantly changes at the whim of clouds, what they obscure and what light they allow, like a beacon of a lighthouse upon the green hills." (March 2024)

"Trees like matchsticks made for giants lined the shore of the Columbia River.” (March 2024)

"The sun through the window warmed me while cold slipped against the back of my neck like a shadow." (March 2024)

In the distance, the sound of an axe..phff thump reminds us of that other world.

Stories remind us of:

Of known places...

"Bellevue, Idaho. A safe little town of fifteen hundred people on the banks of the Wood River." (Anabel's Lion by Tony Baker)

Of altogether new places...

"Unlike the west side of Canree Nu, the east side seemed to be prospering. Tall, beautiful buildings with wide windows displaying the potted greenery inside plush offices." (Truth: A Story of Canree Nu West by Mary Ransome).

Of remembered places...

10,000 deposits of liquid sky / from where the land rises up.

The loon mellows / its sorrow in the morning. (Lamplighter: Poems by S. A. McNutt)

Of uncertain moments...

When I woke, moonlight was coming through the bedroom window, silhouetting a face. I was not afraid; I recall feeling only curiosity. (Spirit Chasers: Field Notes from a Skeptic by Michael K. Edwards)

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