Seasonal themes can be used across all genres. All a writer needs to do is take the basics, and apply them to their genre and audience. Halloween/All Hallows Eve is a wonderful example of seasonal focus. We have the season of autumn/fall, with the focus on a specific event - Halloween/All Hallows Eve.
Things to be taken into consideration include:
Colors: black and orange, for Halloween itself, and shades of yellow, orange, and red, to represent the season of autumn/fall.
Physical Environment: graveyards, backyards, school parties, private parties, masked balls, seances, pumpkin patches, trick-or-treating, haunted houses
Symbols: leaves in fall colors, skeletons, ghosts, goblins, pumpkins, spiders, bats, black cats, witches, cauldrens, broomsticks, skulls, scarecrows, candy corn, cobwebs, mummies, caskets, camp fires
Food: cakes & cupcakes frosted with Halloween symbols, apple cider, carmel apples, popcorn balls, pumpkin bread, spice cookies
Themes: costumes, disembodied voices, haunted houses, trick-or-treating, seances (one of my favorites!), cemeteries ... the list is endless!
Add a character or three ... and you have a story!
Here are a few stories that you might want to check out:
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Washington Irving), The Cask of Amontillado (Edgar Allen Poe), The Judges House (Bram Stoker), The Black Cat (Edgar Allen Poe), and A Ghost Story (Mark Twain). One must not forget the poem The Raven (by Edgar Allen Poe)!
(c) October 2018 Bonnie Cehovet
Reproduction prohibited without written permission from the author.
