what is the weather like in your stories?

The literal thunderstorm happens near the beginning of the story. It drives the plot, darkens the mood and forecasts the metaphorical storm, which happens toward the end.

 

I only use weather if there is a reason for it in my plot. Since I mostly write horror, I'll often use the weather as a way to isolate someone. Heavy rain caused a rockslide which cut off road access, thunderstorms caused power outage, nice day inspired man to go out on a boat... stuff like that.

 

Underdeveloped. Should be a thing I consider more.

 

I'm an outdoorsy type, a former coastguard officer and a pilot, so the weather has always been a really big part of my life. It gets mentioned quite a lot in my stuff and usually directly shapes the events of the story in some way.

 

It depends on the story, but in my current novel weather is used to indicate the change of season, and sometimes mood. It takes place in New York City in 1980, so when the weather is relevant to a scene, I check the weather almanac for my character's zip code on the approximate date so it's accurate. For a scene in London in 1973, I checked the weather almanac for that date as well because I needed to know whether to place the outdoor action in the rain or not. It happened to be unseasonably dry that month, so I"m glad I checked.

 

My story takes place in an alternate Earth, which contains erratic weather conditions due to the magic that permeates everything. One of the countries is always on fire, for an example.

 

I use weather for foreshadowing. It is also part of my storyworld. Weather is a good tool to use, a canvas for your plot to unfold in.
I have a dry, hot land in my story, desperate for the floods to revitalize the land. My society is just as parched though they do not realize it yet.

 

Cloudy and depressing

 

I think about weather and time of day a lot when I write 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' fanfiction. Can't have a vampire out in the middle of a park on a hot, clear summer day. I have often forgotten when I've had Spike or Angel in an outdoor scene, and thought 'hang on, he's outside in the middle of the day!'.

 

I used to describe the weather just because I enjoyed doing so, but I now realise like a lot of stuff I used to do with my fiction, it was because my heart was reserved for poetry - I just didn't know it back then.

 

It's always raining, and I never give my characters umbrellas.

 

Weather can certainly help to set the scene, but it's probably best not to launch into heavy-duty descriptions of it. Instead, I reckon it's a good idea to focus on how weather is affecting your characters and/or the situation they're in.

It doesn't have to be all 'it was a dark and stormy night' melodrama, either. Weather doesn't have to be extreme to have an influence on your story.

A nice day can get people out of the house. A nice day in a string of nice days presents opportunities for outdoor activities or trips. A nice day sandwiched in between two horrible months of rain can mean your characters either scramble around to get stuff done that they can only do when it's not raining, or they can decide to do nothing at all and just enjoy themselves in the sunshine.

Weather impacts on all of us, even down to the clothing we choose to wear or the activities we can choose to do. So does climate. So why shouldn't it impact on the characters and settings in our stories? Deciding to leave it out is a decision a writer can make, of course, but there isn't any reason to make that a general goal for every writer.

 

Occassionally, I will detail the weather or have a by-pass reference to it in the text something - usually as a form of conversation between two characters (or non verbal conversation, eg: "John sat around, musing about the rain outside....").

But, outside of those rare and sporadic moments, I mostly use it as part of my plot of because the timeline defines it - as my plot goes over several years, thought multiple winters and seasons in different areas. I reflect this in the weather. I do not go into too much detail for the most part unless is somehow plays a part in the scene.

That's just me though. At most, it is rarely more than a simple description averaging barely even a phrase and at the very most, 2 complete phrases (or equivalent).

Occassionally, especially in my scrap doodles, I will define and overtly detail an particular setting, scene, character or otherwise (simply to develop the skills). But I assume those don't count...

 

Nice.

 

Last novel was dry with regular radiation storms, because that was an integral part of the plot.

This one is set during a raging thunderstorm because it adds to the hazards the characters are facing and gave them a reason to go to the location the story is set in the first place.

Next one is cold and wet just because it's set in an English autumn.

 

I actually got on one of those weather history sites to pull up the weather for particular areas in the year my story happened.

 

My stories are usually sci-fi so I usually have something wacky happen like a layer of the atmosphere getting cold enough to create liquid nitrogen rain, but the Leidenfrost effect prevents anyone from freezing to death from it inside the colony.

Or because the moon is so close to the planet there's like a 200 ft difference in sea level between high and low tide.

Or a city is built up the side of a cliff and fog banks will pour over it and look like a waterfall.

Why? Because it's cool.

 

I tend to gravitate towards winter and cold weather. If I didn't rein myself in, everything I've ever written would have been buried in snow. And, trust me, it's still hard to not fall back into bad habits. There's something about it that inspires an unknown emotion in me that often leads into inspiration.

 

Nothing wrong with that! If snow and winter inspires you, go for it.

 

Yes, me too. The weather impacts a great deal on my story, actually. (It takes place during the dryish spring and summer prior to the Big Die Up in Montana, which happened in the winter of 1886-87.)

 

in my current WIP series, I've been looking at weather a lot. It started out as a desert, and I researched how desert dwelling communities lived and desert nomads. watched a few documentaries on the people of the sahara, gobi, and atacama. Then I realized I needed a diverse terrain; it couldn't all just be desert (it COULD, but I felt it was a little flat....lol). So I added mountains and plains, which changed the weather pattern. Its still basically a desert (low to zero rain fall in some places), but now I have a variety of deserts from the scorching hot to the cooler, and arid.

I have a "just because" story.... something that I go back to every once in a while when I need to force myself to be creative but dont really have anything to add to my WIP..... I have it set in Ohio in the fall, but the weather is messing with me. Like I have it raining and cooler (like sweater or windbreaker type of cool), but then I had some falls where its been super hot and dry (washington dc) then i've had some falls where it snow flurried (pennsylvania). Its fall where I am now (2 hours from Ohio) and the weathers been fluctuating. it was hot for like 2 days, and now its chilly and raining. So I'll guess I'll go with that.... until I feel like its stupid....

 

I'm really strict with POV, so I don't make any reference to the weather unless it is of direct relevance to (and is noticed by) a POV character. For example, one POV character has a terminal brain tumour, and one of the effects of this is intense pain and sensitivity to light and heat. So when he is walking outdoors, the sunlight and hot summer climate become very relevant. If the weather isn't affecting the character in a significant way, I don't even think about it. The reader can decide for themselves if it isn't of any importance.

 

I use weather a lot to create atmosphere and set the mood. Most classics have - I particularly remember the thunderstorm in 'The Go-between' - reading it as an impressionable teenager, I always wanted to make love in a hay barn to claps of thunder and the rain pouring down outside. (Never wanted my mother to come and catch me, though! )

Thanks to whoever posted Gene Kelly.....had forgotten how great that is!!

 

I think that weather can be important for many reasons. Mine happens to be sort of symbolic. I feel it can really set the mood and want this to be portrayed within my script. That being said, I do think it needs to be considered for what it is. Meaning it needs development in other areas like character and plot in order to be considered fully effective.