5 Ways to Use a Mood Board When Planning Your Book (And Why You’ll Wish You Started Sooner)
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Staring at a blank page can feel tough, but trying to see a story before it exists can feel almost impossible. You might know your plot beats, your protagonists’ motivations, even the twist no one will see coming, yet the aesthetic often remains uncertain until many drafts later. That’s where mood boards can really help prop up your story’s vibes for you and place them front-and-center to help you understand your own visualization process. I personally create mood boards for every story I write and I put effort into each one, creating boards for characters, places, religions, ideas, etc… So, for today’s post, I’ll be helping you understand 5 ways to use a mood board when planning your book and why you’ll wish you did it sooner.
Want to skip the design stress? Grab my professionally designed Canva Mood Board Templates here.
1. Visualizing the Vibe
A mood board can help to really picture your story’s vibe and aesthetic. Images that you collect and use in that mood board should really reflect that aesthetic. If you aren’t sure what your story’s aesthetic is like, check out this post.
Here are some examples of “vibes” for different story types:
- Dark Academia: dim libraries, plaid skirts, candlelit hallways.
- Cozy Romance: pastel cafés, knitted blankets, soft golden morning light.
2. Developing Characters
For characters, after you’ve used my Ultimate Character Creation Guide to help design them from the ground up, you can use mood boards to really nail the way your character feels to you as well. Think of a mood board sort of like a casting call where you try to think if your character were real how they’d feel and look like.
You can have a character that dresses in dark black coats or a character that is a soldier and wears their military’s uniform. You can even have a character that has a scar on their lip that hints at previous battles.
When you describe your characters in writing, having a visualization to go back to will help you write more sentences like this: “He toyed with a tarnished pocket watch, its glass fractured in a spiderweb pattern.”
3. World Building Levels Up
Mood boards aren’t only good for characters. You can even use mood boards for your world’s settings. For instance, if you have a gothic coastal town, you can find pictures of gothic architecture, cold beaches, and weathered iron fences to put into a mood board and give you a more visceral feel to your setting.
Mood boards really can help level up your world building process by giving you something to look at in your world building.
4. Setting the Mood for Your Writing Sessions
On days when your motivation feels a bit low, keeping your mood boards open in some way in front of you will help you stay motivated more than you think. The vibes of your mood board can help set the mood of your own writing sessions.
Pair your writing session with a matching playlist or ambient sound (crackling tavern fire, neon rain, forest birds). Your brain builds neural shortcuts between those visuals and the words you need to write, which reduces warm-up time.
5. Pitching or Marketing Your Book
For marketing, it’s really important to know the visual aesthetic of your story. Visuals can turn your story from a simple document to something visceral in the minds of your readers. People who are looking your story up on something like social media will be able to see the mood boards and get inspired and pick up a copy of your book because the vibe spoke to them.
You can also show off those mood boards on your website and show your readers what they can expect to see when they go into your story.
That’s why I created tons of mood board templates and decided to share them with you all, because I think mood boards are honestly a very essential part of the writing process that are highly underrated. I studied graphic design and learned how much a simple mood board can change a brand’s entire perception, so don’t skip out on these premium mood boards and learn how to actually take your story and turn it into a visual, attention-grabbing marketing tool!
Also, if you want to learn more about marketing your books, sign up for my newsletter and get access to an entire marketing checklist and learn from the workflows that best-selling authors all over use.
FAQ (Answering Search-Intent Questions)
Q1. What exactly is a mood board?
A mood board is a curated collage of images, colors, and textures that captures the aesthetic, tone, and emotional heartbeat of a story.
Q2. Do I need expensive software?
No. Free tools like Canva or even a private Pinterest board work. Templates like the ones I sell just save you hours of layout time.
Q3. How many images should I include?
Aim for 7–15. Too few leaves gaps, too many creates visual noise. Group them by purpose: vibe, character, setting.
Q4. Will a mood board really improve my writing?
Writers who visualise scenes consistently report faster drafting and fewer continuity errors because the mood board keeps tone and detail locked in place.
Q5. What if my book’s vibe changes mid-draft?
Great. Update the board. Let it evolve as your story does. A living mood board is a creative compass.
Ready to Make Your Own Mood Boards?
Mood boards lock tone, flesh out characters, enrich worlds, fuel writing sessions, and supercharge marketing. They save you from vague descriptions and wasted revisions.
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