Taylor Brooke | Cities and Romance - Writing Atmosphere

Have you ever opened a book and found yourself walking the streets of your favorite city? I have. I’ve been transported to real-life places like New York, Atlanta, and Miami, and found myself yearning for imaginary worlds like the dangerous island cliffs of Thisby. It’s my favorite part of writing and reading—watching a setting become alive. Books, where setting and atmosphere created a significant dynamic between characters, is what inspired me to become a more atmospheric writer. Thankfully, my co-writer, Jude Sierra, is well known for using personal backdrops to amplify her characters, especially in her critically acclaimed Idlewild and well-loved new release A Tiny Piece of Something Greater . A love for setting and mood was one of the core concepts Jude and I used for building Shadows You Left . Gray, storm soaked skies, Seattle’s height, and sea-side scents, and the forest spanning the outskirts of the city were all used as parallels to mimic emotions and conflict between our two leads, Erik and River. As challenging as it might be, creating a character out of your setting is an intimate and poignant way to inject personality into the fringes of your story. We used this technique as we navigated our first draft, researching weather trends, beer culture, foodie hot-spots, and the overall feel Seattle had to offer. Soon, Jude and I were using storms and rain in tandem with love scenes, sunlight, and brightness to highlight anxiety or being overwhelmed, and we were attaching scents and sounds to familiarity and curiosity. Playing with atmosphere allowed us to find depth in our characters, and it also pushed Erik and River to dig for depth in each other, enhancing the overall mood and tone of the book. Sometimes bending your characters to fit into an emotional scene isn’t always enough. Frankly, it usually isn’t. But if your setting reacts—if your atmosphere lends to the emotions your trying to convey through reactions—then the story will naturally move forward. It can also work to lighten your story. Shadows You Left is a particularly heavy, romantic read with dark themes and gritty content. But it’s also filled with lighthearted moments cushioned by Seattle’s food truck scene, art movement, vintage shopfronts, and quirky nature. Even though Erik and River are being put through hell (well, they’re putting themselves through hell) Seattle and the atmosphere around the city works as a reminder that everything grows and changes—storms, seasons, trends, and galleries.

Crafting books with believable settings can make or break a
project. As someone who lives in the Pacific Northwest, I personally loved working with our
Seattle setting, and I know Jude was excited about it, too. Not only because it’s Seattle, home
to the Seahawks, amazing craft beer and incredible seafood, but because there’s a feeling
cities have that I just can’t live without. The hustle and bustle and suffocating closeness, the
restlessness, and addictive pace. Cities, for me (and for Erik), are escape routes and surrogate
homes, places made for leaving and staying depending on the day. They’re romantic, each in
their own way.

I have to admit, romance aside, I’d stay in Seattle for the beer. Erik? He’d probably stay if he found a good tattoo artist.