Storytelling: use more colours to impress your readers
Storytelling is human's right and privilege. Whether you are sitting on your desk in the home office, or scribbling down on the notepad before going to sleep, you surely enjoy storytelling. But, as any other writer out there will tell you, the writer's block is a daunting thing.
If you are fighting with problems like lack of motivation or simply feel like your writing is missing something, we got an answer for your – colours. There is not a single attribute that can transform the writing as descriptively and rapidly as colours. Regardless of the hours you spend talking about how lovely the day was when the story took place, a single colour is all it takes to entice the reader and provide him with the exact clarity you intended.
Fortunately, colour is not difficult to include in the writing. Carrie Millow, writer at The Times and Head-Director of one of the best essay writing services says: “That’s really important to use colors in your writings. It inspires readers and takes their attention”. When writing, you will surely throw in a little yellow and a little red, and perhaps a little blue, too (most of the time unintentionally). Every writer out there needs colours to create a story.
But, there is something writers often fail to recognize – colours can be deliberately used to create the perfect story. If you know how and when to use it, it is a gift you can use to impress the readers.
Here are some tips on how you should use colours in your writing:
1. Learn the Basics of Colour Theory
To our subconscious minds, colours indicate feelings and moods. Knowing this, you can actually use colours to influence the experience of the readers while they are reading your writing.
Of course, you do not need to rush and memorize every colour in the palette and its effect on people, but try to remember the basics of colour theory. This knowledge will come very handy when you are trying to depict a character or influence the reader in some way.
2. Use Colours to Dig Deeper into Your Characters' Personalities
As an author, you probably know how important it is to create the right characters' personality. You must work on creating their history, speak of their surrounding and appearance, as well as behavior. Well, colours can help you create a character's personality better than anything else can.
Why is this?
When you write about a character, you are trying to help the reader visualize him/her. Telling the reader that this person is well dressed is simply not enough. If you want him to imagine the same thing you are imagining, you need to be more detailed. In order to do this, you need the help of colours.
Is your character wearing black clothes because he is mourning over someone? Is her style unique, in a way that she grabs the attention of everyone around her? What is your character's hair like?
Do not let things to the imagination. If you fail to tell your story right, the reader will feel no need to keep reading your story.
3. Include Colours Everywhere
Colours can surprise a reader, help him understand something important, make him feel in a way you want him to feel. Include colours everywhere, not only in creating your characters. Include the colours in the plot and the scenes. And most importantly, learn when to use colour to trigger emotion and achieve a great effect.
4. Use Colours to Reveal the Mood
The natural setting in which a story is told can be bursting with colours when the story is happy, and include black and gray where the story is about to become very surprising. Many writers fail to recognize how colours affect the reader when a surprise is about to come, or the story is about to unravel.
Whenever you are planning to make a change in the story and introduce a new 'mood', think of the appropriate colours to do so.
5. Use Colours to Weave Symbolism
Finally, colours can be used to evoke symbolism in a story.
Very often, a human's subconscious is able to create more symbols than the brain produces deliberately. Therefore, you should always run back to the beginning of the writing and check the colours used. Once you identify the symbolism you unintentionally attached to a plot or a character, you can either remove or strengthen it.
Look for instances where you used colours repetitively, and imagine the impact this repetition may have on the writer. Is this the right way you want your story to be perceived? Does the symbolism fit your original idea?
Adding colours to a piece of writing should not be seen as a struggle but as a joy. Colours are there to aid you to create beauty and vividness, introduce sadness or amazement. For the most part, using colours in a story is like colouring inside the lines – once you learn to do it right, you can never forget it.
