Memorable Halloween Moments: Crafting Your Story

Knowing how to create mood in your writing is vital to a good story. Halloween is the perfect season to explore memories brimming with mood and feeling that bring the reader into your world. What are your memories of Halloween? These are some of mine.

Halloween was a gift of burning leaves, pumpkins, and cornstalks, and witches and ghouls flying on front porches and tree branches. It started when Mother climbed into the attic and came back with boxes full of paper pumpkins that opened up like accordions, and black cats with arched backs and big yellow eyes to hang in the windows.

On the night before Halloween, Mischief Night, my friends and I ran through the darkness, tree branches outlined against the bright moon. With a bar of Ivory soap, we covered car windshields and, if we felt bold, windows and storm doors. We rang doorbells and dashed away. We laughed as we tossed toilet paper over bushes and tree branches. Our neighborhood had two-story brick colonial houses hidden behind ancient oak and maple trees, their leaves falling in the moonlight. Dogs howled and barked late into the night.

Out of respect, we never smashed carved pumpkins, although most people brought them in from porches and driveways on Mischief Night. Some of the meaner teenagers did that, and it cast a pall over the fun of Mischief Night to see those poor, smashed faces crushed and ruined in the street.

I had already carved my jack-o’-lantern, hollowed out the pulpy goop and seeds, and carefully used a straight-edged knife to make triangles for eyes and nose, and a joker-like mouth with teeth. Mother brought me a half-burned-down candle from dinner parties. I dug a small pit in the bottom of the pumpkin, lit the candle, and dripped wax into the pit before securing it. When I put the lid on and the candle was lit, I could smell the earthy, pumpkin aroma that is forever Halloween. Then came the moment. We turned out all the lights in the kitchen. Our jack-o’-lantern glowed on the table with pure witchcraft.

My favorite part was when Mother brought the gypsy costume tucked in tissue paper down from the attic. Mother had worn it when she was young. Alone in my room, I tried on the outfit, excited. The yellow ruffled skirt, peasant blouse, and red scarf with little bells that tinkled as I tied it around my head changed me from a plain girl with brown hair and gangly legs into someone mysterious. I spun in front of the mirror, my skirt swirling around me.

Witches flying across full moons and ghosts rising from graveyards were the images that brought magic and mystery to a little girl who believed her imagination could make her anything she wanted.

I put on my winter coat over my costume to stay warm in the cold October air, and Mother gave me a big paper bag for trick-or-treating. My friends and I, all in our costumes, went from house to house. People opened their doors and asked, Who are you? Or what do we have here? We stepped into the warm light of living rooms, unaware as children of the hidden struggles some families faced. I only understood those things when I grew older. I remember Mrs. Tattenall, who I later learned died from lung cancer after many years of smoking and drinking. She always gave out the best treats: big Milky Way bars and small paper bags decorated with moons and witches, filled with M&M’s and gum.

Maybe it was the love of home and family, as much as the gypsy costume and the thrill of pretending to be someone else, that made Halloween so special. Memory, when combined with happiness and imagination, infused Halloween in years to come with magic and otherworldliness, apart from day-to-day reality.