It was my first year teaching a creative writing class and I was quickly learning that articulating basic writing concepts was harder than I’d imagined. Things like story structure and characterization felt so second nature that talking about them sometimes felt like trying to explain breathing.
This difficulty was most obvious when I taught my students about atmosphere. I’d glossed over the concept earlier in the year, mentioning that setting, word choice, and imagery were important components in manipulating atmosphere effectively, but I wasn’t sure they really got it. During our Horror unit, I decided to revisit the concept, armed with a new game plan.
(1) Show
My students were well aware of my fascination with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)—a supposedly family-friendly film where an eccentric candymaker invites five children to tour his magical chocolate factory—children who then start succumbing to grizzly accidents.
At the start of class, I showed my students two movie trailers. The first was the original Wonka trailer. Before I started, I posed a question: What are some words that describe how this movie trailer made you feel?
The answers were as expected: whimsical, childlike, magical.
“OK,” I said, once half the board was filled. “What made you feel that way?”
I wrote those answers down too: The pretty music, the bright colors, the candy-covered setting.
Once the board was filled with answers, I pulled up the second trailer and repeated the exercise. The trailer was for the same movie, but it had been recut to resemble a horror movie trailer, complete with brooding violins and a tense voiceover.
When the trailer was over, I called for descriptive words again. I had hands up immediately: Unhinged, Disturbing, Serial Killer Energy.
“But the scenes were the same,” I said. “What made a difference?”
The crazy violins. The dark color grading. The frantic cuts.
Note: I picked Wonka because it’s a movie I’d already discussed with the class, but I’ve provided other trailer options here.
(2) Tell
Once I was sure my students understood atmosphere on a gut level, I went over setting, word choice, and imagery with them again, using two similar passages with different atmospheres to demonstrate how setting, word choice, and imagery are used to shape atmosphere.
Model Text: “Writing Horror – The Importance of Atmosphere” published on mcnallyrobinson.com, October 11th, 2012.
(3) Practice!
Finally, I had my students break into four teams and gave each team a location: Cornfield, Carnival, Fairyland, and Castle. I instructed each group to write two short descriptive paragraphs on their location—one with a charming atmosphere and another with a horror-tinged atmosphere.
My students were deft touches at warping an always-sunny fairyland into a sweltering wasteland that melted flesh or a cheerful carnival into a sinister, soul-stealing prison. Sure, they didn’t all become miniature Edgar Allan Poes overnight, but I left the class confident that, this time, they understood the lesson.
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Destiny Howell is an MFA student, a creative writing instructor at the University of South Florida, and the author of High Score (Scholastic Press, 2022). The sequel, Second to None, releases in Fall 2024.