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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30338
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30338
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Suppose you are hosting visitors to your city and you want to control the impression they get. If you want to give them the impression that your city is safe, you take them down certain streets at a certain time of day. If you want to give them the impression that your city is dangerous, you take them down different streets at a different time of day. If you want them to feel your city is green, you take them to the park. If you want them to feel it is a concrete jungle, take then to the freeway interchanges and the industrial district. If you want to give the impression that your city is cosmopolitan, take them to an ethnic restaurant. If you want to give the opposite impression, take them to Denny's.

Now, you can control the impression they get to a certain extent by how you talk up the city, by the language you choose, but your words will do much less than the actual experience of neighbourhoods to create the impression that stays with them.

It is the same in a novel. Most of the feel of the novel will come from the places you take the reader, the scenes they witness, the weather, the food, etc. In other words, all the things that would shape the feel of an experience if they were there in real life.

Don't think about this in terms of words, therefore, but in terms of storytelling. To make the reader feel something, take them to a place or through and experience that will create that feeling, just as you would if you were taking them on an adventure in real life.

Original score: 6