How to Create Mood in a Story: 7 Tips to Build Atmosphere

The mood in a story refers to the overall atmosphere of a piece of writing — from gloomy to upbeat to unsettling — and is all about the reader’s emotional response to the text. You can feel it, but it can be hard to identify exactly what inspires those feelings. Is it setting? Pacing? Individual word choices? There’s no easy answer, since mood is produced by a combination of many different factors in your writing.

To help you understand how to refine the mood in your writing, in this article I'll walk you through what mood is, how it’s created, and give you some helpful examples of effective mood-setting from classic and contemporary literature.

So turn the lights down low, get yourself a hot cup of tea, and let’s get in the mood to write!

1. Understand the role mood plays in a story

See what I did in that sentence just now? By evoking the imagery of a softly-lit room and steaming cup of tea, I attempted to create a cosy, relaxed atmosphere, perfect for learning about mood. In the same way, you can subtly evoke emotions in your texts to bring out a physical or emotional reaction in your readers — from relaxation to fear or even disgust. This is mood.

If you want a dictionary definition, 'mood' in literature is the atmosphere, pervasive feeling, or emotional aura of a piece of writing. From happy or joyful to tense, suspenseful, eerie, sad, romantic, hopeful, or nostalgic (and so on), it is the combined result of elements like setting, word choice, and the events of a story.

🤓 Note: mood in literature is different from grammatical mood, which describes the different forms of verbs (subjunctive, indicative and imperative) that convey a speaker's attitude.

Personally, I like to think of mood a bit like one of those multi-setting light switches. You can take the same room, with the same furniture — or the same scene with most of the same components — and change the mood subtly by dimming the light or switching the bulb to a white LED.

Consider the effect of a red lamp shade, casting an alluring hue over the room. Perhaps there’s no light at all, only candles? Maybe the light keeps flickering? Much in the same way, mood is made up of multiple, subtle components infused into your writing, that together cast a light over the whole scene, and indeed the whole book. 

Take The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter, for example. Set in a snowed-in manor in the British countryside, two romantic leads must work together to solve the disappearance of an elderly mystery writer.

From the classic plot points to the lighthearted tone, the stereotypical-yet-charming characters, and the locked-room setting, all of the elements of this romantic crime novel come together to put the ‘cosy’ in cosy mystery. Switch up one or more of these factors and you might have yourself a high-octane thriller à la Die Hard instead.

Before we continue to look at the nitty gritty of mood-making, let’s make a quick pitstop and discuss how mood is different from tone. 

Mood vs. tone

If mood is the feeling that washes over the reader when they read your text, tone is determined by the attitude of you as an author, the narrator, or the speaker. Often these two go hand in hand, but they are considered distinct concepts in literature.

Take this quote from Rufi Thorpe’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles: 

Because all around her she could feel the echoey space of no one caring about her or worrying about her or helping her. She might as well have been nursing this baby on an abandoned space station.

Here, Margo, a young single mother and the narrator of the novel, writes about her younger self in third person. The tone is reflective and empathetic because, with the benefit of hindsight, Margo is realizing that she was let down by the people who were supposed to care for her. As a reader, on the other hand, the mood of this extract is sad and a bit rueful.

Compare that with this quote from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, where the tone is ironic and flippant, while the mood is playful yet thought-provoking:

For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.

The distinction between tone and mood can be a bit blurry, and you won’t have to worry much about it for the rest of this article, but it can be good to store this piece of information in the back of your mind as we continue to explore how you can create mood as a writer.

✍️Practice exercise: Pick a few, short sections from a handful of novels and try to pinpoint the tone and mood in the excerpt. Note down what you think contributes to the mood, specifically. 

2. Align mood with character and story arcs

I like to imagine the mood of my story running parallel to my protagonist’s character arc — or the story arc. A story about a tragic hero, for instance, might start on a hopeful note but end in, well, tragedy, whereas an uplifting novel might start out optimistic but then contain many scenes of struggle and sadness, only to end on an uplifting note when the protagonist finally overcomes their difficulties.

Take Andy Sachs in A Devil Wears Prada. She starts off as a hopeful yet insecure new recruit at a big fashion magazine. Struggling to fit in and please her demanding boss, Andy compromises  on some of her core values.

By doing so, she gains recognition from her boss and colleagues, but eventually begins to feel disconnected from the people and things she used to care about — and becomes a version of herself she doesn’t like. This prompts a series of self-realizations that allow her to reclaim her identity and find a way to be successful on her own terms.

As Andy goes through these changes, the mood of the story ebbs and flows from hopeful and optimistic to sad and upsetting, to, finally, uplifting, taking the reader on an entertaining emotional journey. 

In the same way, as you draw up your character or story arc, don’t just treat them as plot beats you need to hit. Also consider what the emotional impact of each major scene should be. Once you have a rough idea of this, you can start thinking about how to best bring out that response in your readers.

✍️Practice exercise: As you read your next book, note down the major plot points of the story and ask yourself how each scene made you feel. Was there anything particular that the author did to bring that reaction out of you? Do you wish they would have done something differently?

3. Infuse your narrative with evocative words 

Perhaps it goes without saying, but word choice plays a huge role in setting the mood. Most words come with their own emotional connotations and some are more evocative than others, helping you paint a vivid picture of how the scene looks or feels.

The trick to focus on how something is done or appears, not just simply describing what it is.

For example, compare the mood created by using a nondescript verb like 'walk' versus a more descriptive one like 'tiptoe'.

A walking character could be moving in countless ways, making it hard for the reader to imagine. A tiptoeing character, on the other hand, could suggest caution, stealth, fear, or even consideration for others, and so on. This simple verb immediately conjures a more specific image that ‘walk’ and can help, in context, to create a suspenseful or eerie mood. 

A good ‘mood word’ has the ability to cast a spell over an entire scene. A character starts to 'tiptoe' instead of 'walk' and suddenly the reader's attention is laser-focused on each movement and sound description. This is showing, not telling the reader how to react to your scene.

The table below shows some ‘mood words’ to describe how someone walks or talks:

Beyond individual words, you can also change the mood of a scene by creating different imagery. Imagine, for instance, that you were to rewrite this quote from Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman: 

Original:

I felt something begin to loosen inside me, something I had held so tightly that I had almost forgotten what it felt like to relax. I didn’t know how to explain it. It was like a knot had been undone inside me, and I could breathe again.

---

Rewrite: 

I felt something ignite inside me, something I had buried so deep that I had almost forgotten what I was angry about. I didn’t know how to explain it. It was like a fuse had been set off, and I couldn’t stop the fury from fanning the flames.

With a few changes, the whole mood quickly shifts. Instead of untying a knot — an imagery associated with a feeling of relief — a fire is ignited, hinting at the character’s building rage. 

✍️Practice exercise: Take a scene from your favorite novel and rewrite it in an angry, sad, happy, or eerie mood using active verbs and switching up the imagery.

4. Appeal to all senses

One reason evocative words work so well in establishing mood is because they often appeal to the reader’s senses. Writing ‘There was a romantic mood in the air’ is not nearly as convincing as providing examples of what ‘romantic’ feels like. To some, it might be the flickering of candles, the faint scent of rose petals, or the comforting sound of soft jazz in the background. Describing what your characters see, hear, smell, feel, and even taste in this way can help immerse readers in the emotional experience of the story.

In Like Water For Chocolate, for instance, Laura Esquivel does an excellent job of appealing to her reader’s senses:

As she kneaded the dough, the warm, pliable mixture seemed to absorb all her loneliness, and with each fold, a layer of sorrow was left behind. The sweet aroma of the dough, the feel of it soft and yielding in her hands, was a comfort. It brought her closer to the memory of her mother, whose voice she heard echoing softly in the room, telling her everything would be alright.

By using sensory imagery and words, Esquivel invites the reader into the scene and into the character Tita’s mind. You can practically smell the dough, while also getting a clear sense of how Tita is feeling. There is a soft warmth radiating off the pages, and as she leaves her loneliness and sorrow behind in the dough, the whole scene is imbued with hope and comfort.

Whether it's the cold wind that chills your character to the bone or the sweet taste of success after a long struggle, sensory writing like this allows the reader to step into the shoes of your characters and experience the world as they do, mirroring their feelings and mood. 

But remember, balance is key. Too many sensory details can overwhelm the reader, while too few can make the story feel distant or flat.

💡Practice exercise: Write an eerie story using the sensory words below. What other words can you add? What sensory words would you use to write a romantic story instead?

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• Sight: dim, hazy, glowing, vibrant
• Sound: eerie, thunderous, muffled, silent
• Touch: cold, smooth, gritty, tender
• Smell: musty, fragrant, stinky, sweet
• Taste: bitter, sour, salty, refreshing

5. Heighten the mood with your setting

Setting plays another critical role in shaping the mood of a scene. Kind of how the mood meter in The Sims goes up when your Sim enters a room with paintings on the wall, changing the environment changes the whole feeling of the scene. Where your story is set and how each scene looks, smells and sounds helps build a specific atmosphere. The time of day, the weather, the location — these all contribute to the mood of your story.

Imagine, for instance, that a storm is brewing. There are many ways this can affect the mood of the scene, depending on how you combine it with other elements in your setting.

Say you’re on a deserted island and have built a ramshackle shelter from some supplies that have washed ashore. You watch the clouds gather with a sense of apprehension. Will your shelter last through the night? Will you?

Compare this to being a farmer in a town going through drought. It hasn’t rained for weeks and your crops are about to fail. You watch the horizon, praying for a drop of rain. Rather than apprehension and fear, the potential of a storm brings a sense of relief and anticipation to the scene.

Playing around with the context and details of your setting in this way shows how subtle mood can be and how your setting can impact it. Small details help build the emotional impact of the scene. Even better if you can connect it to your character or story arc.

In Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, for example, the descriptions of the windswept moors evoke a feeling of isolation and bleakness. The harsh winds and constant rain reflect the internal turmoil of the characters. 

A desolate, soul-destroying place. The hills, surrounded by a deep, gloomy ravine, on which the wind roared perpetually, seemed to possess the same perpetual dismalness that I had noticed in the heath. The sky was a cold, gray mass, the wind shrieked through the trees and over the moors, as if it were a voice wailing in the distance, calling out for something or someone lost.

Likewise, in Great Expectations, Dickens conveys a mood of despair and decay in how he describes the eccentric Miss Havisham's home:

Some of the windows had been walled up; of those that remained, all the lower were rustily barred.

It is almost haunted in atmosphere, which continues when Pip goes inside:

The first thing I noticed was, that the passages were all dark, and that she had left a candle burning there. She took it up, and we went through more passages and up a staircase, and still it was all dark, and only the candle lighted us.

By describing both the outside and interior of the house in terms of ghostly, shadowy abandonment, Dickens creates a gothic mood and atmosphere, while also hinting at the inner lives of both Pip and Miss. H. 

To apply this to your own writing, think of setting as something active rather than just backdrop. If you want to create a sense of dread, show the readers how to feel by describing the setting as cold, empty, or decaying. Or, on the other hand, if you're aiming for peace and tranquility, set your story on a “soft summer’s day” and add a “gentle breeze” into the mix.

6. Convey mood through dialogue

Another lego piece of creating mood in a story is dialogue. When it comes to dialogue, however, I find that how you say something can sometimes convey more emotion than what you say. Saying ‘I am so happy’ with a straight face doesn’t have the same effect as writing a dialogue scene where the character can hardly get their words out because they’re too excited to speak.

Take this short piece of dialogue from The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan, for instance:

‘You weren't able to talk sense into him?’

‘Well, we kind of tried to kill each other in a duel to the death.’

‘I see. You tried the diplomatic approach.’

The tone and content of this quote are completely different. The deadpan joviality and ironic responses of the characters create a lighthearted mood, despite talking about death and killing people. 

Another thing to pay attention to is how dialogue is spaced out through the story. If a scene is played through mostly dialogue, it may create a more intimate and immediate feeling, whereas if it is primarily played through narration, the effect may be more distant and reflective. 

Say, for instance, that your character likes to speak in long, uninterrupted chunks. This creates a very different experience than a scene which contains meaningful silences, shy glances, and action beats that keep interrupting the dialogue.

A great example of how the way a dialogue is written or performed affects the overall mood can be found in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women film. The four sisters, Jo, Amy, Beth, and Meg often talk over each other, interrupting each other or finishing each other’s sentences. This overlapping, simultaneous style of dialogue conveys excitement and an upbeat energy.

Compare that to this halting and quiet dialogue in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars between Augustus and Hazel: 

"I—I don't know," I said. "I mean, I think I’m supposed to, you know, get used to it, but sometimes it’s hard."

Augustus smiled a little, like he understood, and then he said, "It is hard."

This more hesitant dialogue carries a more heavy mood and reveals the uncertainty and vulnerability of the characters, but also the trust between them.

Lastly, think about how setting, dialogue and mood interact. For example, if your characters are in a loud, crowded nightclub, it will alter the way they speak. If the mood of your setting is vibrant, pulsing with life, think of ways your characters' dialogue can add to and enhance this atmosphere. Are they shouting? Are they leaning in towards each other? Do they keep getting distracted? Or does the outside world go quiet when they talk to each other?

✍️ Practice exercise: Take a short piece of dialogue from one of your favorite novels and rewrite it to shift the mood. For example, take a calm conversation and rewrite it to create tension or vice versa.

7. Fine-tune the mood with your pacing

The last thing I try to do to make sure I’m creating the right mood in a scene or in my story is to look at pacing. Much like the timing of a joke determines how your audience will react to it, the speed at which your story unfolds naturally impacts how readers experience it. Quick pacing can increase excitement or tension, while slower pacing can invite reflection or build suspense. Then there’s the sequencing of your scenes…

Imagine that you’re writing a somber funeral scene, for instance. If the tone is lighthearted and carefree in the scene immediately following the funeral, it might break the mood and throw the reader off because they haven’t seen the character’s emotional journey on the page. In this way, consider how your pacing in and between scenes affects the mood of the scene and the story as a whole. 

Sentence and paragraph length

Another way you can change up your mood through pacing is to play around with sentence and paragraph length. In a scene of high suspense or tension, for instance, shorter sentences make everything move faster, while long, run-on sentences as you deliver a character’s internal thoughts can suggest a sense of exploration or thoughtfulness. 

In Raymond Carver's short story 'The Bath' (from What We Talk about When We Talk about Love), after a boy is knocked down by a car, a mood of anxiety as well as numb disbelief in the hospital builds through clipped, short sentences:

“Of course, the birthday party never happened. The birthday boy was in the hospital instead. The mother sat by the bed. She was waiting for the boy to wake up. The father hurried over from his office. He sat next to the mother. So now the both of them waited for the boy to wake up.”

Compare this to the inner monologue of the disabled protagonist in Saou Ichikawa’s Hunchback: 

Being able to see; being able to hold a book; being able to turn its page; being able to maintain a reading posture; being able to go to a bookshop to buy a book - I loathed the exclusionary machismo of book culture that demanded that its participants meet these five criteria of able-bodiedness. I loathed, too, the ignorant arrogance of all those self-professed book-lovers so oblivious to their privilege.

The stacked examples and run-on thought pattern perfectly captures the character’s righteous indignation and sweeps the reader with it in its outrage.

In this way, by matching the pace of your sentences and the simplicity or complexity of their construction you can achieve the mood you want to convey and keep your readers emotionally engaged.

✍️ Practice exercise: Experiment with pacing and length of sentences and paragraphs. Slow down the action in a scene to build suspense or emphasize a moment of emotional reflection, or speed up events to heighten urgency and intensity. 

Creating mood is one of the most powerful tools in a writer’s arsenal. It shapes the reader’s emotional experience and can transform a good story into a truly immersive one. Not every sentence needs to be mood-building, but by carefully crafting mood through a combination of setting, character, dialogue, and sensory details, you can guide readers on a journey that resonates long after the story ends.

Remember, mood isn’t just a backdrop — it's the emotional heart of your story. Use these tips and exercises to start enhancing the mood of your novel and experiment with different emotional states in your own writing.