Originally Posted by
mediocrity
In response to Verf about mental pictures, that's totally it. Transporting someone to the scene you are describing is essential.
Not to be a braggart, but I've been working on my own novel about two years. I'm not a professional writer, but here is an excerpt I shared in my public blong that I think fits the bill about creating atmosphere:
Atlanta, 2005.
It was a busy Friday night despite the thunderstorms. Patrons were running in, damp from the valet station, and those unlucky enough to wait in line outside did so until they could squeeze water out of their shirts.
Sometimes it baffles me, the conditions people will wait in to see nude girls.
Fortunately it was a warm rain, but it was a humid, sauna environment inside the club; our air conditioner had been pretty sketchy all week. The packed in wet bodies created an almost solid air atmosphere. I felt like I was walking around in warm, loud, dark fog. Despite it, people were jovial, the girls onstage didn’t hesitate to remove their clothes like we did most nights… we were thankful to run around in our bare skin, though our hair stuck to our foreheads and our makeup was running.
I had made a decent amount of money thus far into the night. It was around eleven in the evening, and prime hours still had yet to come. During dances customers fanned me with table tents, and for once I can say I was grateful for the gesture. My regulars had come in, all three of them in the same night. I looked around and smiled, thinking about the new television I was going to buy in the morning if all went well. I heard my name called, strutted up onto the stage, and then it happened.
The power went out.
Now this may not seem like a crisis in a home situation. You sit in the dark with your family, wait a couple of hours and the lights come back on, no big deal. But in the most popular strip club in a major city, this is a huge problem. No lights. No music. No kitchen. No DJ to announce when we are next. No blow dryers, no straightening irons, no mirror lights. A huge “Awwwww!” went out across the crowd. In short, we were fucked.
I stood there, not knowing what to do. Should I keep moving, should I stop? Should I sit down? Having been in plenty of awkward positions, but never something like this, I had no clue what to do.
After a few minutes, several other girls came up on stage to keep me company. We sat in a circle, talking to the patrons. Ironically, they continue to tip us. I think in some way, they found it amusing, the group of naked girls sitting on a stage in the dark. I can’t say as I disagree with them. You would think people would have left, but truthfully, not many did.
Suddenly my manager runs up to the stage with a huge box in his hands.
“Here girls, line the stage, we’re going to make this work. Hurry up, ok?”
The box was full of candles.
We lined our forty foot runway stage with candles and lit them one by one. With four or five of us working, it didn’t take long. The customers cheered in approval as our DJ came up and sat at the foot of our stage with a guitar.
For the next two hours, girls danced by candlelight to acoustic music our DJ played with his guitar. The whole thing was beautiful, the light dancing of the girls’ curves. The customers were remarkable quiet, and those of us not onstage continued to go about the room selling dances, which proved to be astonishingly easy. The whole evening was relaxed and felt like such a treat; no booming music and people screaming over the normal din. Even the balmy Southern air felt soothing instead of stifling.
I was almost sad when the lights came back on. To this day years later, it is one of my fondest memories of this particular club. We were like a family always, but this night proved it to me over and over beyond a reasonable doubt.
I made $1500 that night without trying.
It is days like that which remind me that, sometimes, I love what I do.