Atmosphere in fiction, has always been one of the key points in telling an engaging story, but for being such an important aspect of it, it's a relatively unspoken topic.
To clarify, what I mean by atmosphere, is that feeling of being in the story, but through the lens of design elements and setting, instead of character interaction. There are plenty of good sources for how to make good charcter development, so I won't get into that too much here.
The main point to take away from all this, is that good atmosphere comes from making the setting a character.
Atmosphere is essentially where fiction and design intersects, where an author needs to also be an architect, a planner, a graphic and interior designer.
It's also important to understand that good atmosphere doesn't need to be realistic, a story can be cartoonish or absurd, but still have good atmosphere.
Example: Kaiba (Anime)
Good atmosphere can also be just as effective in non-visual creative mediums as well, such as novels, poetry, text based games, etc. So it's important to consider developing the setting to it's fullest, even if the audience can't actually "see" the same image you had in mind.
Achieving good atmosphere can be essentially boiled down to three main rules:
Paying attention to detail: Allow the setting to develop by always considering what goes on in the background. Focus on the small details, if your world is different to ours, show this by how it physically effects the setting.
If your world uses a real world setting, then try showing the city through a different perspective then it is usually shown. Try different locations and like fictional settings, you can always add small details to increase immersion.
make sure each element and detail in the background, even if it's not being utilized or interacted with by any of the characters, makes sense and has a practical purpose for being there.
It's never good practice to just put sci-fi or fantasy looking stuff in the background just for the sake of putting it there.
Continuously develop your setting: keep building on your setting, show it develop as your story develops, eg: if there is a disaster in your setting, show it adapt to the new conditions and developments, etc.
Always be consistent with the rules you have established for the setting, this is the best way of keeping your atmosphere down to earth and believable, even in the most fantastical setting.
remembering to keep in mind the limitations and restrictions with the setting you've chosen. Building on the limitations of the setting can lead to some really interesting scenarios.A lot of the appeal from a game like Half-Life 2 comes from overcoming
show your characters interacting with the setting: have the characters actually do things with the world around them. Instead of just having the character walk and talk, try having them walk up a ladder instead, or crawl through ducts. Small details like this really add a lot to the feeling and dimension of the story.
While I wrote these techniques with setting in mind, a lot of this crosses over to vehicles, weapons, plot devices and really any design element as well.
A good example of attention to detail outside of set design, was the focus on power supply with the mecha's in Evangellion and the limitations associated with this.
I hope this helps you with your creations,
-Pablo, Author of INTERMINUTE
