Writing About Colors

When writing, you might be focused on metaphors, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and just getting those words on the page. It’s not like you are a painter who picks their color scheme before you start, right? What if that wasn’t true?

Colors, just like any other detail in your book are important. Colors can be used to set the mood of a scene, to accentuate a character’s traits, and more. If you’ve never stopped to think about how impactful colors are in writing (besides the thought of “ooh, pretty colors!”) this will be a fun and insightful bunch of advice for you.

Don’t go Overboard

When writing with colors, it’s easy to start adding colors everywhere. But this can get repetitive and too wordy. In the end, it is important to use a color descriptor ONLY when it is important to the scene, plot, or essential to make sure the reader is seeing what they need to see.

For example:

Abernathy walked to the park in his blue sneakers. The sky above was blue, the trees were green, and a yellow butterfly fluttered past as he entered the park’s gates. Jill, with her red coat, was there waiting for him. As he approached, she turned around and handed him a red locket.

There are a lot of colors here, right? It’s so many that it slows the scene down a lot! We don’t need obvious statements (unless you are purposefully drawing attention to them) telling us the trees are green and the sky is blue. Saying it is “a brisk spring morning” is better because then your readers can imagine all those colors themselves without you spelling it out.

Second, the red locket seems to be important here. The red jacket challenges it and gets in the way as all those other colors take attention away from it as well. With all this in mind, let’s rewrite the scene:

Abernathy walked to the park. It was a brisk spring morning and small butterflies were flitting above the grass. Jill, all bundled up against the chill air, stood at the gate. As he approached, she turned around and handed him a red locket.

In this rewrite, more focus is drawn to the locket!

Avoid Repetition

As we discussed above, listing colors can get repetitive. Don’t do this:

The room had a white table, a white desk, and white walls.

That’s a lot of white, right? This is repetitive and if you need your reader to know everything is white, I suggest simplifying it and saying “white” only once. I would only use this repetition if it were really, really important that everything was white.

The room, entirely in white, had a table, desk, and empty walls. (Or: The room—entirely in white—had a desk, chair, and empty walls.)

How does repeating words hurt your story? Simply by being too much! Imagine you are talking, and you say a certain word over and over again. That can get annoying to listen to and the more the word is used, the less meaningful it becomes. Why? Because overusing something tires it out.

Colors and Meaning

Colors can be used to carry a metaphor throughout your story. While the color “red” denotes to literally mean something is the color red, the connotation (feelings or meaning a word suggests, but not by definition) can mean something else!

For example, dark colors can create gloomy, sad, dark, or scary moods. Light colors can be peaceful, clean, and happy. For fun, here are some colors and their connotations!

Colors and Identity

Colors can be used to accentuate character traits visually. When reading the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, I realized many different characters of the very large cast were always associated with a particular color, almost every time they entered the scene. I remember Daisy, the main love interest and “pure” girl was surrounded by white satin and pearly colors. A pair of twins or sisters who attended every party and had bright, ecstatic, energy were always dressed in yellow.

Matching a color to your character simply makes them recognizable and can speak to their personality.

Color and the Senses

Colors have an amazing way of bringing more than one experience to the table. We’ve already talked about how different colors have different connotations and you will find this is very similar in that sense. Some colors we can literally taste, see, smell, and feel when we read those details. When choosing a color to describe something, its best to pick one word that has the best effect.

For example, if your character’s house has a yellow wall, what if you called it a lemon-colored wall? (If that matches your scene and the feeling you are creating.) Lemon VS yellow has a much bigger impact! These kinds of descriptions can evoke the senses, making you story a more immersive read.

Two more can be pine-colored VS green. Or an ocean-blue instead of simply being blue.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, your intent and how you want to write your story is a deciding factor in these choices. Depending on the metaphors you craft or the descriptions you want to include, colors and the themes you choose can literally mean anything.

For example, I listed a handful of connotations for the color green: nature, envy, queasy, and fresh. If I wanted green to represent love in my story, I could do that. A love that is rich like the deeply entwined forests, always growing and blossoming into something more beautiful…

I hope you had fun with today’s article!

Best,

Danni Lynn, Evangeline40003