Colorful Writing

Color can be a meaningful tool when it comes to writing in a literary fashion.  All that takes is hinting to the reader how to read that color and then remaining hyper conscious of that color as a pattern.  A red shirt can be red just because you, as the author, likes red.  But this is a failure to use the tools available to you.  Color can be made to shape a message with which you can signal meaning to the reader. 


Colors can be used in obvious ways. In the common symbolism, red suggests anger, blue sadness, yellow cowardice, white innocence, and so on.  They often play into stereotypes.    Bad guys wear black, while good guys wear white.  However, shows like Star Wars plays with that.  Luke shows up in white when he's an innocent but then appears in black when he's a master, kind of like a black belt or a priest.  The good guys and bad guys wear black.  A close study of color in those movies can provide a rich bounty of meaning, little of which relates to conventional coloring systems.  You, as the writer, don't have to rely on accepted symbolism, either.  Think of the use of red in "Sixth Sense."  Every time an element of the supernatural shows up, red plays a heavy part in the scene.  Red has nothing to do with anger, evil, or anything known.  M. Night Shyamalan has created his own color system, as can you. 

Someone who is alert can catch onto that symbolism and catch more than they may otherwise do.  Wizard of Oz, both movie and book, rely heavily on color to instill meaning.  In his article "Color and Its Uses," Mike Nagle talks about the symbolism.  The good witch, Glinda, is described in colors of red, white, and blue to tie her to the American flag and to show her as a positive force.  Different countries and peoples are associated with different colors as Dorothy travels through a rainbow from yellow to green to blue. Yellow is associated with hope and optimism since that's what she's felling when she follows the yellow brick road.  The greens of the Emerald City in the movie seem to be associated with false power, illusion, money, and greed.  He creates his own color code and makes its meanings clear throughout the story. 

Decide if you want to use a conventional coloring system.  If not, what do you want your colors to mean?  What patterns of meaning can you weave throughout your story?  This is probably best built up in later drafts as you revise.