How To Get Atmosphere Into Your Writing

So, you live in downtown Manhattan and you want to write a book set in the Old West? That’s called creative writing and a lot of the fun involved with writing is using your imagination, and being able to launch the reader into that time period so they will find themselves riveted to the page as they read. Doing research into a time that happened millennia ago, such as Ancient Egypt, can be easy if there is a body of art and words to support the period.
Recorded human history only goes back a few thousand years so if you’re into the Jurassic or such, then you are truly on your own, or are you? If there aren’t any records, then you have to read about and refer to things that were in existence around that time period. With Ancient Egypt, and thanks to the Rosetta Stone, there are plenty of records and visuals showing the daily life of Ancient Egyptians, such as mummy makers and pharaoh (lots of those of course as pharaohs liked to show off and build gigantic monuments like the Great Pyramids and the Ramesseum).
If you can find few records about the time period you want to set your novel in, then absorb what you have and extrapolate on the feelings that come to you. Create the daily lives of those Ancient Egyptians. Try and put yourself into their shoes and walk the ancient streets of Thebes and look around you and smell the odors and look at the sights and sounds. You have to do this to make your novel interesting, even if it’s not a true historical book but another genre, such as a thriller.
Sometimes you can combine what we know today about, for instance, CSI techniques and imagine those being used back in your time period. Of course, a lot of these procedures and tools would not be available back then so you do have to be careful and use appropriate materials, such as copper, if you are writing about a time period which used that metal to make a lot of their tools and everyday objects such as mirrors, from.
If you are writing about mummy making in Ancient Egypt then don’t go mentioning formaldehyde — use what info you have about that Ancient Egyptian art and learn about what it meant to the people and what they hoped to achieve by doing it. Set proper names for your characters that reflect the time period as these are a big part of making any reader feel involved as well as enthralled with your story. Ancient Egyptians used a lot of gods’ names, such as Thoth, as well as names from other countries of that era like Meryneith and Charuni and Kemsa — the latter two being Nubian, and Nubia is still in existence, but now renamed to Northern Sudan.
Live your peoples’ lives, and you will do much better in your writing to achieve the proper atmosphere. It also helps if you are enchanted with the time period already, so perhaps setting your thriller or other book in a favorite era will give you a big boost! Perhaps most of important — find the absolute perfect title for your novel and this will inspire you, the author.