From a mood to a story?

I write erotic stories, so I think this is, essentially, what I do? (If I understand your question correctly.) In erotic writing, the senses and what's happening in a character's head are far more important than the physical. So it's using super close POV, so you're deep-deep in the character's head (including all the senses), filtering their experience to create the mood you want; it's word choice (blue vs aquamarine vs velvety midnight, for example. Much different moods.); it's sentence structure. A laughing, chatty character is going to feel entirely different from a quiet, watchful one. The setting is part of it, too, and how the MC reacts to that setting--what they see, smell, hear, feel (mentally) can deepen the way setting is used. Using all five senses--not as a one-off list (it's not uncommon to see the 5 senses used this way, like it's a box a writer feels they needed to tick), but as a guide to exposition and word choice.

I'm not sure that's creating a story out of a mood, per se. Perhaps it's more, writing with the two inseparably intertwined.

In a short story you don't even need the story part. You can set up the mood and write "the end". Of course, some readers may not like that All stories have "mood" and "atmosphere". A funny story would have a happy mood. A horror story would have a scary atmosphere. What would make the reader feel the happy mood? Maybe two people kissing. Then you can have a story about how they met, how they got to like each other, what obstacles they had to overcome etc. All the tropes of "a love story". Or, how would you make the reader feel scared? Maybe have a vampire chase your character. Then you got the tropes of the horror story to play with.

This may not be terribly helpful advice, but I think you have to ask yourself, "What would make ME feel this way?" and build on that. When I was walking around Six Flags Magic Mountain in 2005, after going through the Gotham City set, I realized I wanted to write a story that had a dark, edgy, and slightly noir-ish feel to it, so I started with that and decided that, for me, a lone man who took on the lower, darker segments of society, and who struggled to balance that with something positive and romantic, would convey that sentiment. I developed it as close to my own life as possible so that the emotions would be real, and I went on to write work that I was proud of.

This is most of what Poe did.

Dan Rhys said:

This may not be terribly helpful advice, but I think you have to ask yourself, "What would make ME feel this way?" and build on that.

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Personally, I think this is another good tactic to utilize. It may not work for everyone, and one may not have a specific experience to draw from, but drawing on one's responses in general to a particular mood can help deepen the writing and make it feel more authentic.

It's sort of what I do. (Successfully? Who knows.) Only for me, it's music, because music and mood are intertwined so closely. I do what Dan does and start to fit a story to a mood that a particular piece of music gives me. Of course that morphs and changes. So, my first WIP started out trying to capture the excitement of live music and relationships played out while people were making music together, but it turned into Biblical-parable fan fiction. My second WIP came from a place of nostalgia but is now a look at the persistence of memory and whether or not you can hide from the past. (AKA, the lines Kat won't use in a query letter.) But I find that starting with the mood and texture of the piece helps me get passionately interested so I will keep writing.

Yes, I did this with my latest work. I remember being very inspired by the rich gothic atmosphere in Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines and really tried for a similar feel. Not sure if I was successful in that department, but it was a great experiment if nothing else.

Like others, the idea of mood and story have come to me more or less concurrently. I haven't begun with a mood and then built a story/plot around that. I've rather had an idea for a story, which generally came with a certain mood attached. Story about war? Tense, frenetic. Story about domestic violence? Thoughtful, watchful.

I have been to places that had a certain mood that I wanted to capture for a particular scene, more so than an entire story or novel. My brother's wedding was on the Outer Banks, and my father took us out on his boat, and something about the colors and the feeling of the place spoke to me. When I wrote about Georgia's Sea Islands, I wanted to capture that sense of open sky, quiet, and slowness. After experiencing an English autumn, I wanted to capture the long, golden shadows and the crispness. After visiting a Civil War-era house where Confederates shot from the roof, I wanted to capture a bit of that feeling of things being out of control (for the homeowner). You'll notice a lot of this comes from visiting particular places.

For me this is the tone of a story. I try to have a tone in mind when I begin a work. What is the mood I want to govern my words and impart to the reader. It can really salvage a story if I'm having trouble making it work. I wrote a piece about two teens sneaking off to the family cabin to "get close" and I wanted the tone to be that of playful innocence (even though what they got up to was hardly what people would call innocent). But it helped me weigh every word, every image. (Got it published, too.)

I don't think the mood is the story, but it can be a major part of the story.

There is a lot of music out there, and generally there is a song that fits the mood of what I want to write.

It can range from classical music, to AC/DC.

To convey a mood, is the same as provoking an emotion. They can be happy, sad, motivating... there is a full spectrum available.

I think it's a good exercise to take the mood of a song you like, and covey it into writing.