Changing your mood

We’re talking about changing your mood in writing, here, not your mood first thing in the morning or when you’re disturbed after watching an exciting movie at home!

Writers need to be aware of mood changes.

You need to alert the reader as soon as possible to any change in mood from the previous sentence. Words to use for changing the mood include: but, yet, however, nevertheless, still, instead, meanwhile.

Shareholders were obviously delighted to get the overall picture from the Chair, but when the CEO began to speak . . .

In this example, the mood obviously changed when the CEO began to speak, and the word that signals that mood change most clearly to the reader is ‘but’.

It’s much easier for readers to process a sentence if you start with ‘but’ when you are shifting direction. It is much harder if they must wait until the end of the sentence to realise that you have shifted.

Many of us were taught that no sentence should start with ‘but’. If that’s what you learned, then it’s time to unlearn it.

There is no stronger word at the start of a sentence when you want to change the mood.