I recently read a novel which, because I like only to say kind things of authors, I shall not name. Suffice it to say that the author had written two successful novels before and I hoped for a mood to match the season in this one.
It was a ghost story, so I thought I was definitely on track. It was set in a different historical period, but that's fine by me. Past ghosts are just as troubling as present ghosts. The story, however, couldn't ever strike a mood.
The setting was in a time of an epidemic. As well as war. But the optimism—can I even call it that?—of the narrator seemed not to allow for what Edgar Allan Poe once said was essential for stories: the "single effect." It was a story scattered all over the place.
Perhaps most jarring to me was the use of language that seemed inappropriate to the time setting of the story. Phrases that seemed modern, or lighthearted, sprang up in awkward places. Unusual phrasing was repeated—apparently unintentionally. Each time it happened the mood broke.
A ghost story became just a story.
I grew up reading Poe. I started writing what I thought were stories when I was still in primary school. I tried writing a novel before I graduated from high school. I'm now old enough that all of this is somewhat distant memory to me, but I learned how to write from reading Poe.
Although I couldn't name it, it was the singleness of effect that had been my guiding principle. It still is, I fear. My stories, seldom published, are intended to keep the mood throughout. No jarring metaphors or similes. It is an art.
October is a month in which I'm ready for a single effect. It is a month overflowing with possibilities. Each second wasted is one that could be spent trying to ensnare this ghost that I tend to call mood. It is a writer of skill indeed, who can hold such a wraith fast.
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