Establishing mood & the need for variation
"The hall, seen through the doorway, became darker than the kitchen, where two low cooking fires tossed trembling shadows as well as heat. Even the wall sconces and the chandelier candles seemed to have guttered and gone out. From the center of this deeper darkness five pale heads gained in size every moment, until he could make out the glassy eyes within the sunken orbits, eager and hungry in their focus upon him. Not until they hovered just beyond the doorway did he make out the folds and darts of their black cloaks. This was the effect they strove for, of course, and though he recognized the manipulation, he could not overcome its dread intent." pp.49-50 of Lord Tophet by Gregory Frost
There are so many ways to embrace variety and to establish the appropriate mood. But it occurs to me, reading this excerpt above, that when these two points intersect one should be careful to evoke in differing ways, particularly the darker emotions, if we want to engage our readers and make them fall into the mood/emotion we are striving for.
Evoking mood without overdoing it can be pretty difficult. You can either put off readers by seeming over the top--thereby kicking out of your fictional dream by making them scoff; or by wearing out their sensibilities--too much of a good thing makes it all seem one level. In dog training, we called that increasing their titration level, the threshold of response. Just like constantly yelling at your dog or your kids will make them ignore the yelling because it becomes meaningless, maintaining the same level of description, pacing and the same sentence structures becomes like a background noise we quickly ignore, feeling subconsciously that we already know what they are saying.
The human mind (and attention) embraces novelty. It should go without saying, but really bears repeating: We writers must provide new stimulations in our stories in order to keep readers engaged.
It's very individual to each story and can depend greatly upon the world you've built and the genre. But an interesting technique that Gregory Frost uses in his Shadowbridge novels (Lord Tophet is the second in the series) is that of inserting stories. His main character is a shadow puppeteer, and she is constantly relaying stories which are framed by the main story. I am not sure I like the technique because I am annoyed when the stories show up; yet it is an effective technique. I do read them, become immersed in them, and leave them glad I didn't skim or skip. These stories underscore, point out or foreshadow elements in the main story that are important. They add depth...and variety.
So hopefully this provides you with a few kernals to chew on.
