Colors Around the World

Happy May everyone. I am sitting here in Starbucks, perusing Pinterest boards. I came across this infographic that I pinned a while ago, and it sparked an idea I wanted to share with you.  Writers, and editors for that matter, need to know the meanings behind what colors they use, especially if you have a manuscript that is set in a different culture.

Color plays an important part in writing, as it can evoke emotions, bring life to the scene, and help the reader see the imagery you are portraying in their minds with perfect clarity, as well as signal your character’s personality.  Writers can labor for days on the right choice of colors to bring forth the spring meadow or the shipwrecked boat.

Hallie and Whit Burnett expound on this idea in their Fiction Writer’s Handbook.

Actual emotions are helpful in expressing emotions, placing emphasis where human behavior becomes exceptional. The use of red—red face, fire in the eyes, and the like—will express anger, or possibly embarrassment. Green is a color which tranquilizes on a summer day; and the late Louis Bromfield, in a long-ago novel, spoke of an aura of color around the heads of his characters, which somehow added to their individualization and gave clues to their behavior. Research has been done by experts to determine moods expressed in colors, the various results being used in advertising to attract the eye of a buyer. So the novelist may add depth and convey meaning if he himself sees a scene as natural as the life before him, contrasted in tone and shade and values of the color spectrum.

I hope you enjoyed this, and learned something as well. Join me again as I will be revisiting this topic and bringing you more information that you can use in your writing in regards to Color.