Creating atmosphere : with shade in the picture
Light and shade help to create atmosphere. It doesn’t have to be deep gloom or blinding sunlight, just a degree of contrast.
To see what I’m getting at, have a look at the 3 pictures in the slider below, showing roughly the same view of a snowy landscape, but in different kinds of light. I reckon the changes of light and shade move the viewer from misery (or at least gloom), through hope, to something much more positive.
The question is: can we do the same thing, subtly, with mere words?
“A picture’s worth a thousand words”
If you don’t believe me (and if you have a spare wet towel for your head) try reading the famous 599-word sentence from Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. (The original French is just as wordy so we can’t blame the translator.)
Once you’ve got to the end — if you do! — ask yourself whether you actually have a rounded picture in your mind’s eye. Chances are, you’ll have a couple of glimpses, via a phrase or two, and nothing more.
You don’t always need a page of description to paint a picture in the reader’s mind.
Just a single hint will do, to beckon the reader further into your story.
It’s what we call The Beckoning in our Libertà editing workshops.
And the writer’s job is to make the temptation irresistible. With mere words.
No pressure, then.
Light and Shade and Contrast via word choice
Sometimes atmosphere is between the lines, as I suggested in the first atmosphere blog a couple of weeks ago. Sometimes, though, it’s in the precision of the word choice, because of the cultural flavours and colours that go with word A rather than word B.
(We mentioned in our RNA Conference session last year that changing the single word “woods” to “forest” can bring in a whole host of unvoiced allusions derived from dark European fairy tales. Hansel & Gretel? Ravening wolves? A house full of dwarves?)
I’m not going to presume to tell writers what words to choose to bring light and shade to their description or to beckon readers in. I’ll just give you a few examples, from the openings of books that I’ve found impossible to resist (and mostly bestsellers, too).
Since I’m a reader who generally prefers action to description, these authors had to beckon me across a pretty high hurdle. And they succeeded.
Painting shade : five examples
The Dogs of War, by Frederick Forsyth (1973)
No Time for Romance, by Lucilla Andrews (1977, reissued 2007) Non-fiction
It was still dark when the first three or four of them sidled out of the hovels, quiet as cats in their felt boots. A thin layer of fresh snow covered the little town like a new coat of paint, and theirs were the first footprints to blemish its perfect surface.
The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett (1989)
The Cuckoo’s Calling, by Robert Galbraith (J K Rowling), (2013)
Wool, by Hugh Howey (2013)
Not always pure visual description here. The other senses beckon too, like sound versus silence in Lucilla’s memoir or the children squealing in Howey’s silo. Some single words or phrases seem to ooze menace and darkness. Just my opinion. Others may disagree.
Painting light : five examples
Lieutenant Hornblower, by C S Forester (1952)
Ride a White Dolphin by Anne Maybury (1971)
The Hollow Hills by Mary Stewart (1973)
His first cry competed manfully with the snarling call of a leopard on the hillside below, and his first breath had been a lungful of the cold air that blew down from the far rampart of the mountains, bringing with it a clean scent of snow and pine-needles to thin the reek of hot lamp-oil, the smell of blood and sweat, and the pungent odour of pack-ponies.
The Far Pavilions, by M M Kaye (1978)
Like the couch.
Play, by Kylie Scott (2014)
Sometimes, going beyond the senses, we can paint light or hope using humour as Forester and Kylie Scott do. Why not, if it works?
Or perhaps you have other ways? Do please share.



Apart from the fact that I love your posts, you couldn’t give a workshop on how to blog, could you? I’m in awe.
Cor! Didn’t expect that, Lesley. We do try to be entertaining and useful, but we don’t claim to be experts at all. We’ve made up our own rules based on what we like: lots of pictures, lots of white space, nothing too heavy, make it funny if we can. That’s about it.
OTOH, Libertà can always do with income to support the website, so if there was demand for a blog workshop, I’m sure we’d oblige 😉
PS Our rules don’t, of course, apply to Dame Isadora. She is much too august a personage to adopt anyone else’s rules. Sophie and I humbly accept whatever she provides…
So agree with this. You don’t need to say much to paint the picture. The right words can convey images, sounds, sensations with very little said. Love this post.
Thanks, Liz. Do so agree. I love the little boys sidling out to the hanging. Ditto the patent canvas bucket.and the dance of water. Makes me very envious when I find such mastery of language in books I read.
Thank you so much for sharing such great examples of excellent writing. Note to self: You can try harder 🙂
So true, Sandra. We can all try harder. Even though we may be unlikely to reach the heights of a Mary Stewart… ????