Creating a Mood Board for Your Book
Winter is inward-looking time for me. In preparation for the release of my upcoming novel, Last Bets, and the need to talk about it intelligently, I’m making a mood board.
These design-palette creations aren’t new to me. If you read my post from January 1, you know I traditionally set aside an afternoon around New Year’s, get out my saved magazines, and gather a collection of inspiring images for my year ahead or a new creative project.
A mood board is a bit more developed than collage. I think it can tap into subtler levels of what I’ve created, helping me understand motives and concepts that lie beneath the surface. Truthfully, the whole experience of birthing a book is all-consuming, and I’m just glad to get it into reader’s hands. I may not have time to discern its deeper meaning until the production is out of my hands.
In April, after the book is published, I’ll be guesting on podcasts again, and I know from my podcast experience last year for A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue, it’s vital that I be able to explore the motivations of this new novel in compelling ways.
Mood board creation is not only a delight, it informs me about those levels. I use them to remember my most important reasons for doing another book so soon, for one—a question hosts are bound to ask, since most (saner) authors space their releases further apart! I can explore the personal behind my characters, how they are parts of myself. I can do the same with my chosen setting, looking at why it called to me to place this story in this particular location. All this comes forward as I create a mood board.
What I learn helps me orient my marketing, my promotion, my talking points. I also just enjoy the beauty of what I collect for the mood board. It reminds me how much I love this book.
What are mood boards?
Mood boards are used by businesses to capture a client’s preferences of style, color, and design. Someone creating a new kitchen for your home might put together all the components on a mood board, so everyone involved is on track with the style decisions. Designers use them. (Here’s a good article on mood boards as used by businesses.)
But writers use them too. There are design software platforms to help (Milanote is a favorite, as is Canva) if you want a digital version.
The first question to ask yourself, though, is whether you want to make your mood board digital or physical. It really depends on your preference, what inspires you, what is easiest. I am a painter when I’m not writing, so hands-on speaks to me. I’ve always gone with physical mood boards because they bring in the tactile and textural that digital can’t. I also love to create with my hands, get messy with supplies, spread out on a table. My mood boards are made on foam core with cut out images, fabric, objects I love, photographs, inspirational quotes.
You decide which you want to try.
How to start a mood board for your book or other writing project
What’s your book’s theme? What’s the orientation of the story? What message does it convey to a reader?
It helps me a lot to brainstorm the theme or message of my book that I want to explore on the mood board. First, I consider the meaning of the story, to me. I’ll walk you through how I did this for my new novel, Last Bets.
Last Bets takes place on a Caribbean island. My tag line is “Escape to paradise, find trouble!” So my mood board needed to juxtapose those opposites—the idyllic escape that turns into trouble. I started with a beautiful image of tropic paradise then searched for what conveyed its opposite—the danger and conflict that occurs during the story as a hurricane approaches and all the guests are trapped.
Take a minute now, if you want, and share a thought about your book’s theme.
A great place to search for images is Unsplash. My first choice was easy—this perfect beach image that immediately conveys the heat and intense light of a Caribbean island. I saved it to my desktop to print later for my mood board assembly.
The opposite side of the theme was the gambling underworld that the island houses. It’s a center for high-stakes backgammon tournaments, with players arriving from all over the world to bet their wealth on a game of skill, not luck, as professional backgammon players know. Many migrate from poker to this seemingly innocent table game for this reason. You get good by strategy and skill, no other reason.
The main character is an artist; she comes to the island to finish a portrait for a wealthy landowner but gets involved in the murky underworld of gambling. I found two images for that part of the mood board. One sends a message of order, the other chaos—which is what happens in the main character’s life. She thinks she can control her play. She can’t. Here’s the chaotic image I chose.
A hurricane threatens the island throughout the week of the story timeline. The gamblers don’t leave; the game is too intense. I found this image to add, which conveys the equal intensity of the approaching storm. I loved the contrast between the gorgeous green ocean and sand and the looming bruise-colored sky.
What contrasts or conflicting images exist in your story?
As I chose these starting images, I could see the themes emerging, the longer I studied them and placed them side by side on my board.
What else do you add?
Once you have your primary images, the message or meaning conveyed in pictures or colors or textures, the next step is to gather other pieces that speak to you of the book’s story: type, text, quotes, photographs, whatever you can imagine. Some writers creating a physical board might bring in fabric swatches, dried grasses or herbs, bells and beads. Digital mood boards are more about images and text.
Here’s an example of a mood board from Milanote’s examples.
And a physical mood board from another great site, Lit Nerds.
I took a couple of weeks to browse more images online, journal about how they brought to light new aspects of my story, then arrange them on my mood board. The arranging was important; it’s like a conversation with your subconscious, the Muse, whatever part of you that avoids logic when creating a book. It accesses purposes I’m not aware of outwardly.
After I have the mood board arranged on a table or desk, I try to let it sit for a few days. I stop by to study it regularly, add other things, rearrange some more.
There’s a point when the board begins to resonate, almost vibrate with energy. Then I use some archival glue to fasten the pieces. (You can also do this on a bulletin board with push pins.)
It’s an amazingly creative process, and maybe you’d like to try one this month, as you plan, write, or develop (or publish—like me!) your book.
One writer starts each book with seven bulletin boards hung in her kitchen. She pins to them everything that has to do with the book: Images, lists, sketches, photographs, diagrams. Like a project box, only placed on the wall where she can see each item.
As she writes the book, she sorts. She eliminates options, focusing and tossing what doesn’t fit. She condenses the number of boards to one, discarding all the material that doesn't actually belong to the book anymore.
If you prefer horizontal filing to having things tucked out of sight, this fun tool may work well for you. All you need is enough wall space.
Your Weekly Writing Exercise
Start a mood board/vision board/collage this week for your current writing project. If there’s an aspect of the project you’re stumped on—like a character you wish you knew better—you can focus on that for the board.
Decide if you want the board to be digital or physical. Follow the steps above. Gather your objects and images, text and quotes. Arrange them in a pleasing way and let yourself study the board for a few days. Don’t hesitate to redo, rearrange, add or subtract. It’s a evolving conversation.
When you’ve got the board to a good place, take time to free write about it. Describe it to yourself, comment on why you chose different colors, textures, images, words, objects. What do they tell you about your writing project that you may not have known before?
If you want, turn the board upside down and see what comes forward. Often, I’ll see completely new patterns and ideas.
Leave a comment with your findings, whatever you learned or discovered.