Tag Archives: Mood

12 Purposes of Food in Stories

Real-life humans (you and me, for example) eat food to convert it to energy and use that to grow and move. Fictional characters get along just fine without food. Why, then, do we often read entire scenes showing characters eating?

On the other hand, many novels and short stories don’t mention food at all. Fictional years and decades may pass without a character consuming even one morsel or drinking one drop. Yet the character doesn’t die of starvation. What’s with that?

Readers assume a character eats ‘off-stage,’ just as we assume characters use the bathroom as needed without the author belaboring the waste expulsion process.

Since readers will assume a character eats, that takes us back to our original question—why do authors sometimes describe a character eating? I’ve come up with a dozen reasons, though there may be more:

  1. Setting. Food represents part of the setting in which the characters speak and interact. An author’s description of food helps the reader picture the location and background. Depending on the author’s intent, the food may complement the rest of the setting or provide a counterpoint to it.
  2. Authenticity. Some stories feature food as a central part of the story, and the author must show the character eating for the sake of realism. It would seem weird if the character didn’t eat. 
  3. Mood. The author can use food to show mood. (Apparently that’s true for poets, too.) A character’s opinion about food clues the reader into the character’s state of mind. That mood might not match the character’s out-loud dialogue, but will reveal the character’s true emotions.
  4. Talent. The preparation of food, especially difficult or dangerous types of prep, can showcase a character’s talent. Even an odd method of eating food (such as tossing candy in the air and catching it in the mouth) can demonstrate a talent useful to the story.
  5. Status. The type of food a character eats or prepares, whether hobo stew or truffles, may indicate the character’s status or wealth in the society. An author may also flip that script for an amusing or shocking contrast.
  6. Personality. Discussion about food, or the manner in which a character eats food, can unveil a character’s personality traits. Does the character slurp soup, season food before tasting, eat all the carrots before touching the potatoes, chew very slowly, slice the meat into many pieces before consuming one, etc.? How a character deals with food tells readers about the character’s general behavior patterns.
  7. Thoughts. Delicious food often reduces inhibitions, prompting people to say what they really think. This is particularly true as characters imbibe alcohol.
  8. Dialogue. People talk while eating, and a shared meal gives characters a chance to converse. This dialogue, like all fictional dialogue, must serve a purpose. It must reveal something about a character or must advance the plot, or both.
  9. Prop. The mechanics of food and drink consumption—sniffing, licking lips, arranging a napkin, cutting, lifting to the mouth, blowing to cool hot food, chewing, savoring, swallowing, etc.—help break up dialogue with action. A character may use an eating utensil to illustrate or emphasize a point.   
  10. Relaxation. A quiet meal can serve as a low-tension scene separating two high-action scenes. It gives the reader a chance to catch a breath while characters catch a bite.
  11. Conflict. A meal may afford the opportunity for characters to confront each other over a disagreement. They may argue, or even fight.
  12. Symbolism. An author may use any type of food or drink to symbolize something else. If a character keeps coming back to a particular type of food, and it’s either described or consumed in a different way each time, chances are it symbolizes some aspect of a change in the character.

Unlike us, fictional characters don’t need food to survive, but a story might require a character to eat anyway.

Don’t know about you, but this discussion of food has made me hungry. It’s off to the kitchen for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 5, 2022Permalink

Connecting those Interesting Bits

Alfred Hitchcock said, “Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.” True, but you can’t just write the interesting bits and call that collection of scenes a story. You must connect those scenes in a smooth, seamless way. Today’s post is about these connections, called transitions.

I Iike the way Jody Hedlund described transitions in her post, as tunnels for transporting readers from scene to scene. Without these tunnels, readers would feel disoriented and confused. However, the tunnel itself is boring, so it’s best not to linger there. Keep your transitions short.

In Beth Hill’s post on the subject, she cites the three usual types of transitions: (1) change in time, (2) change in location, and (3) change in point of view. She also discusses transitions as a way to show a (4) change in mood or frame of mind. You can also use these types in combination.

With time transitions, a subsequent scene takes place at a different time than the previous scene. You can separate your scenes by minutes, weeks, months, years, centuries, or millennia. In the case of flashbacks, you can even go backwards in time. It’s important to make clear to the reader how far in time, and in which temporal direction, the new scene is from the previous one.

Location transitions shift the new scene to a different place. Once again, make it obvious to the reader that the story has shifted elsewhere. Spend only as many words as you need to describe the new setting, so the reader feels she is there with the characters.

Point of View transitions can be tricky. It’s best to mention the name of the new POV character early in the scene, in the first sentence. Since no two characters think alike, start by having the new POV character think about something the previous scene’s POV character wouldn’t have, to make the transition more obvious to the reader.

You can combine mood transitions with the other types, and often a change in time or location explains the change of mood. If a character alters mood within a scene, you need to make reason for the change clear to the reader.

Some writers find transitions difficult to write. If that’s true for you, consider writing your scenes first and just skip the transitions. Then go back and write those transitions, focusing on helping the reader understand when the new scene is, where it is, and from whose point of view she’s seeing it. Make the change obvious and brief.

As you edit transitions, read the end of the previous scene, the transition, and the beginning of the following scene. Is the change clear? Is it too abrupt, or too long?

So, follow the advice of Alfred Hitchcock and cut out the dull bits, but make sure you transition well between the remaining dramatic scenes. Now, transitioning to my usual sign-off, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 24, 2019Permalink

In the Mood, Revisited

Some time ago, I posted about how to get yourself in the mood to write. Today I’ll come at it from a different slant and suggest you should write even when you’re not in the right mood.

We’ve all been there. There’s a task (say, writing) you should do, and it’s now the allotted time for it. However, you’re not in the mood. Something else has happened to put your mind in the wrong frame.

Typically, it’s some strong, negative emotion like anger or sadness. Someone or something has upset you and left you too distraught to do any writing. You can’t bear the thought of writing, can’t imagine sitting down at a keyboard, not at a time like this.

Writing in the MoodYour mind is filled with raw feelings, and you have no room for anything else. You can’t be creative, not now. You can’t get in the mind of a character right now, can’t be bothered with rules of English, or with choosing the right words. Besides, your novel is a comedy, and you’re feeling the opposite of funny.

I suggest that this is a fine time to sit down and write. Why?

  1. It’s important to preserve the discipline, the habit, of writing. As we know, bad habits are easy to form, and good habits are easy to drop. If you skip a day of writing based on your bad mood today, it’s that much easier to make an excuse for not writing tomorrow.
  1. You might just write better. That raw emotion you’re feeling will find its way into your prose, and might well give it power, lifting its quality above your previous best.
  1. Writing might give you fresh perspective on the cause of your mood. Writing may calm you down. Perhaps the massive problems your characters face will make yours seem less by comparison. As you push your heroic, fictional character to save the world while subduing monstrous evil, the hero you create might just create a hero inside you, a real person who can resolve the problem of the day.

Of course, there will be days when life legitimately prevents you from writing. Sometimes that event that soured your mood requires you to take action. You have to act, to deal with the problem. Writing is important, you know, but it’s a lower priority today.

I get that. But note a key difference. If you must act, do so. If you have nothing to do but sit and stew, then write instead. In other words, legitimate high-priority tasks can be an excuse for not writing, but a bad mood shouldn’t be.

Thanks to Jocelyn K. Glei, since her post with her interview of Seth Grogan about his contribution to the book Manage Your Day-to-Day inspired my own post.

How about that? I’ve just increased your writing time. Now you can write even when you’re in a rotten mood, as does—

Poseidon’s Scribe

Note: there’s a week left in the amazing Smashwords 1/2 price sale, where you can get 14 of my books for half price. Remember, they’re listed there at the full price, but when you click on any one of them, Smashwords gives you a code to use at checkout to get the discount.

July 24, 2016Permalink

In the Mood…

…for writing, I mean.  If you’re an author, how do you get in the best possible mood to write?

Face it, not every moment of the actual process of writing involves the seamless flow of ideas from brain down to fingers typing with frenzied speed on a keyboard.  There are moments (minutes, hours?) spent staring out the window, looking at a world that’s become far more interesting than the problem of figuring out what the next word should be.  At those times, you need a way to get unstuck.

To be clear, I’m not talking about the classic “writer’s block” where you can be stuck for long periods of time—months or years—and unable to get any creative ideas.  I’m talking about the lesser nephew of writer’s block—let’s call it writer’s clog—a temporary condition where your muse has already whispered the story’s basic idea and sketched out a rough plot.  She has since flitted off to Tonga, or wherever she flits to, and left you in charge of the actual writing part.  You’ve worked on the story for a few days, but all of a sudden words aren’t flowing.

Yogi Berra said of baseball, “Ninety percent of this game is half mental,” and I calculate that statement is eighty percent more true of writing.  So your writer’s clog problem is most likely a mental one.  Now, how are you going to stimulate your mind so it wants to write again?

The simplest way for me is to recall the thought process that led me to the story.  That usually conjures up pleasant memories of the initial enthusiasms, the high expectations of how good the story could be.  Back at that earlier time, my muse had just whispered the story idea and it sounded great.  At that moment, I knew the world needed to hear that story and I was excited about the notion of bringing it forth.

But let’s say that’s not working for you.  Consider using this interesting property of your mind—it can associate two things together (like putting two documents in the same file) just because they happened at the same time, no matter how unlike they are.  Let’s say the muse conveyed the story idea to you while you were in the shower, or mowing the lawn, or out for a walk.  Strangely, your mind now connects your story with that experience.  You might be able to regain your passion for the story, and relieve the writer’s clog, by recreating the experience.

Another method is to artificially create a mental association that’s easier to replicate later.  During the first day of writing the story, while the fervor is still there, the muse’s ideas fresh in your mind—you can make your own mental linkage by finding a picture that depicts something about your story (a scene or character) and staring at it.  You could burn some incense or put out some potpourri and stimulate a fragrant linkage.  Or you could play a CD where the music suggests something about the story, thus establishing an aural connection.

Now whenever you see that picture, smell that scent, or play that CD, you will think of your story and likely be in the mood to continue writing it.  Think of it as Writer’s Clog-Be-Gone (patent not exactly pending).

Do you think this technique might work for you?  Has it worked?   Let me know by clicking “Leave a comment.”  It’s down there right below where I sign this entry as…

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 10, 2011Permalink