: The Lure of the Pen: A Book for Would-Be Authors by Klickmann Flora - Authorship Handbooks manuals etc.

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Thus atmosphere is invaluable as a time saver. Life is too short to allow any of us, save the truly famous, to describe minutely the whole background of our writing, spiritual, mental, or material. If we can, by a few expressive words, or phrases, create an atmosphere that shall reproduce in the reader's mind the train of thought, or the scene, that was in our own mind as we wrote, we shall, obviously, be spared the making of many sentences, and the covering of much paper with descriptive matter and soul analyses, that might otherwise overweight our main theme.

Atmosphere usually suggests some abstract quality rather than a concrete item. We say that a work has an outdoor atmosphere or an old-world atmosphere or a healthy atmosphere; or we may merely say "it has atmosphere," meaning a subtle over- current that clothes the framework of the narrative with a glamour or a spiritual quality that will help to reinforce, or mellow, or illuminate the author's picture. But we do not say a book has a millionaire atmosphere, or a detective atmosphere, even though the book be about these people. They correspond with the solid objects in the landscape, and are quite distinct from the atmospheric effects that can do so much to enhance the charm, or subdue the sordidness, of these solid objects.

It does not necessarily follow that the atmosphere of a book is a wholesome one. There are some writers who create a positively poisonous atmosphere for the mind; but, fortunately, the trend of humanity is in the direction of clean thought and wholesome living, even though our progress be slow and we encounter set-backs; and vicious books are seldom long-livers, while those the public call for again and again are invariably books with a healthy atmosphere.

The student might make a special note of this!

Atmosphere in a well-written book is often so unobtrusive that the reader fails to recognise it as a specific element in the make-up of the story that did not get there by accident. It is so easy to fall into the error of thinking that this or that characteristic or ingredient is due to the author's style, or temperament, or genius; certainly it may be due to either or all of these things, but if it is worth anything it is also due to a well-thought-out scheme on the part of the writer.

In other words, atmosphere only gets into a work if it is put there. It does not merely "happen along," and if you want your writing to be imbued with atmosphere, you must supply it; it won't come of itself. And before you can supply it, you must first think out what you want that atmosphere to be and then decide how best you can secure it.

The hysterical atmosphere needs no description. We know too well the type of book that keeps its characters , from the first chapter to the last, keyed up to an unnatural pitch of emotionalism, with copious details about everybody's soulful feelings and temperaments and lingerie. Books with this atmosphere were constantly striving to get their heads above water in the years of this century preceding the war. They are interesting from one, and only one, point of view: they indicate the diseased mentality that has always come to the surface in periods of the world's history prior to some great human upheaval.

To create the atmosphere you desire, you must be thoroughly imbued with it yourself--you cannot manufacture it out of nothing. It must so possess you while you are at your work that it is liable to tinge all you write. You will never make other people sense what you do not sense yourself.

For instance, it would not be possible for an out-and-out pagan to write a book with a sympathetic evangelical atmosphere, any more than the Kaiser could write a book imbued with the spirit of true Democracy.

Then you must insinuate your atmosphere at times and seasons when it will make the most impression on the reader without interfering with, or hindering, the development of the story; remembering that it is always better to suggest the atmosphere than to put it in with heavy strokes.

You may wish to make a story the very breath of the out-doors. But in order to do this, it would not be necessary to stop all the characters in whatever they were saying or doing, while you describe scenery and sunsets, or explain to the reader how "out-doory" everything and everybody is! This would easily spoil the continuity and flow of the whole, by switching the reader's mind off the plot and on to another train of thought. Instead, you would make the whole book out-doory without any pointed explanation--"setting the stage" in the open air as much as possible, emphasising the features of the landscape rather than boudoir decorations, mentioning the sound of the soughing trees or the surging sea, rather than the tune the gramophone was playing; introducing the scent of the larches in the spring sunshine rather than the odour of tuberoses and stephanotis in a ballroom. In each case the one would suggest freedom in the open air, while the other would suggest conventionalities indoors.

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