As a homemaker/household engineer/WHATever, sometimes it can be challenging to channel a sinister mood. Communion with the dark side is important if you’re creating murder. But it can be especially hard to channel if you’re in between laundry loads and oven timers and looking to write for 15 minutes. Nothing very foreboding about the house…well, except for the spider that sneaked under the hutch in the dining room. Or maybe that stain on the 7 year old’s cute new Kelly’s Kids skort that you have a sinking feeling won’t be coming out. You KNEW you shouldn’t have let her wear it to Bible School. They used paint there and it WASN’T the washable kind. 
This is when it’s useful for me to close my eyes and conjure up something scary. It’s build-a-mood. Things like the Anderson County Fair–the 1970s version of it, anyway. Oh my. There were some scary looking folks that both attended and worked there…especially the fellow who wouldn’t stop the double Farris wheel ride, even though my little sister was about to puke. I mean, come on–we were the only kids on the ride, anyway…would it have killed him to have stopped it? He grinned a gap-toothed grin and ROUND we went again a few more times. Terrifying.
Fairs still scare me. They’re loud and I’m a quiet person. The flashing lights are alarming if you’re prone to migraines. The huge stuffed animals you win are frighteningly hefty if you lug them around for a couple of hours before you leave. The amount of money you pay to ride the rides, eat the greasy food, and park is also scary. There are hordes of people there and I’m an introvert. The nausea-inducing rides are absolutely diabolical (paired with tortuous shrieks). I used to run for the animal/agricultural areas to detox from the overstimulation. This blog has become a tribute to a phobia, but point being, the memory of the fair can transport me to a menacing place that sets the mood for murder.
Other genres also require various moods. Would it have been hard to write a chick-lit book like The Devil Wears Prada if you were slopping around the house in sweatpants? What about romance writers? They have to set an amorous mood in their books—maybe that’s hard to conjure if you’re miffed at your significant other.
So, I’m curious. How does everyone gear themselves up to write emotional scenes—whatever the genre? Inquiring minds want to know. :)
Whenever I need to get into a mood to write about murder, I think about previous bosses I’ve had.
Works every time.
Since I write memoir, I didn’t have to dredge up anything to be connected to the story. But if I’m working on an emotional part, I need complete quiet, absolutely no distractions, because that can pull be right out. Luckily, it’s pretty darn quiet in my house after the hubby leaves for work. Just me and the dog, Buddy.
karen
hmmm…so very interesting. Before I tell you how I stay in the mood for mystery, I want to say that the Canadian Babes had a meeting the other night in which only four of the six could come. We spent the entire evening discussing our summers as kids and exhibitions (fairs, midways) were a BIG part of that discussion. Three of us had two large ex’s as memories – the Canadian National Ex. in Toronto and the Ottawa Ex. We revelled in memories of the Salt & Pepper Shaker (huge scary ride and meeting place for our family in case of getting lost), Tiny Toms (a cone full of tiny doughnuts made before your eyes), the carny guys – scary yes but also very sexy, and on and on. I love the midway – the smell of onions and candy apples and the flashing lights and the tantalizing ever ellusive stuffed animals as bait for our dollars. Ah well.
So to get in the mood I do nothing! I sit down and enter the story. Sometimes I have the spins from time travelling between household, psychotherapy practice, chickens etc… but really when I’m in, I’m in. I guess I just wanted to talk about the ex!
Labanan–Funny how carnivals can make such big impressions on us. I guess they’re just so vivid. You’re doing well to swich off everything around you and write your scenes.
It’s funny, because my darkest scenes have come to me pretty darned easily–of all I’ve written, the most horrible are the nightmare inspired,(start awake and reach for the notebook) or tweaking of real memories (mostly creepy places and ‘what if’ thoughts)… the ACTION anyway.
Motivation of a villian is a little harder to come by–why does somebody DO something so rotten? True psychopaths are only so interesting… much better to write somebody with a character that you could see happening to somebody you knew, given a certain set of circumstances.
I ADORE fairs and carnivals, but can get pretty creeped out around clowns, and can go to VERY dark places over things like ‘freak shows’ (mostly psychological in sympathy of people treated that way and those who would exploit them). I’m quiet, too (says the woman leading the Naked World Domination tour–that’s online though) but I LOVE people watching.
Hart–I’m thinking that my level of darkness doesn’t go very deep. My nightmares are usually not even very dark…I’m stuck in middle school and don’t know my locker combination: ARGHH! :)
I’m with you on the psychopaths. If you’re completely devoid of goodness, you’re only so interesting.
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
I don’t have a lot of trouble getting into scary or emotional scenes (I’m sure that says a bit too much about me). I find the best scenes are those that much later when I go back to edit, I tense up while reading or I cry (depending on the type of scene).
Helen
Straight From Hel
I wish I could get into reading my own text enough to have those types of reactions, Helen. I seem to be clinically detached when I revise. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not…
Elizabeth
Alan–Ha! My memory isn’t that long, though–haven’t “worked” since 1996. :) I was a horrible employee, anyway; I hate meetings, left immediately at 5:00, and kept asking my boss questions like “What’s the PURPOSE for doing this?” If anyone would have contemplated murder, my former bosses would have dreamily envisioned me being the victim.
Elizabeth
I’m sorta in Labanan’s camp. I don’t do much special to motivate or “mood up.” Rather, I just follow the characters and write down what they do, think, or say. Not very scientific, but, it seems to work. (Now, if only the critics talked that way.)
Best Regards, Galen
Imagineering Fiction Blog
A lot of times I use personal experience. Like in my last novel I had to write an emotional funeral scene. I drew on the emotions and feelings I had at my dad’s memorial service to whip up the state of mind to best write in. Things like that.
The Old silly
Galen–No, I think that’s definitely scientific. I must have a flair for the melodramatic that I didn’t realize I had…
Marvin–Oh, that would be a tough one. I’d have a hard time writing funerals that aren’t funny. All of the funerals in my books are funny–I guess because I’d have to actually revisit my feelings during the funerals I’d been to if I wrote serious ones.
Karen–I can see quiet being important. Do you unplug phones sometimes? I always seem to get phone calls from local politicians when I need some quiet.
Elizabeth
Not really. I’m kinda surprised, and slightly concerned, that I can write morbid and macabre scenes so easily.
One of my books in the pipeline, Murcat Manor, is a real dark and eerie Stephen King at his best novel. Sometimes I ask myself, “Do you think there is anything wrong with me?”
Stephen Tremp
Steve–That’s great! I do wonder a lot about Stephen King, though.
I’m kind of in the camp of those who just get involved with the character and follow their lead. There are days when the connection doesn’t happen so I might leave a hole in the story and go back to try it again on another day.
Jane–Good point. I sometimes have to fill in the blanks, too.
Hey, great interviews on your website, by the way! You sounded a whole lot brighter than your interviewer. :)
Elizabeth
I sit with my fingers on the keyboard, stare blankly at the top of my monitor, and go to another place where story is happening and characters are waiting for me.
I use that same technique when my husband talks too long about his bridge games, although I often add head nodding to that one.
Clowns. I hate clowns. Met my first one when I was about 4 years old. He was drunk. Freaked me out and to this day, I see a clown and get cold chills.
Karen–Clowns! Scary!! Yes, I think clowns go hand and hand with fairs, too.
Patricia–Too funny. I find my head nodding when I’m listening to husbands sometime, too.
Had to laugh about the references to Stephen King – I love his work, but I’m betting his head is a very scary place to live in.
Nancy, from Realms of Thought…