What season is your story set in or if it spans a long time, do you go through the changing seasons? Some people say not to use weather too much as it can come off cliche and overdone. So, why is it so easy to stick some sort of storm in or a really hot day? How much of a role do weather and seasons play in your story?
I have a WIP (that I've moved to the back burner while I work on the piece I chose for NaNoWriMo) is literally broke up into seasons. This WIP spans about a year and its a year of change for my young protagonist. I focused on how the seasons can bring out different emotions for my protagonist and her community. its a big part of my plot as it begins in Summer, cycles through the seasons and ends with Summer. I think for some stories, the weather and seasons arent as important as the actual story. For other stories, the seasons/weather are characters in the story and contribute to the plot. In those instances (at least for me), the seasons and weather becomes just another character that the MC interacts with and it is easier to write about
It depends. One of my current stories the weather is mostly inconsequential. I reference the temperature a few times. Particularly how it's different from one setting (Vegas) to the next (Colorado), mostly because they need different clothes. Then in my other current story the weather is a driving force for the plot and nature is a major theme.
Quite a bit as the weather makes a huge impact on travel in Northeastern Europe/Western Asia(just ask Napoleon or Hitler how war in winter works in Russia). I made sure to watch how much time elapses between events so the season changes make sense.
I do know some stories/books take place all in one season, some taking place in a few days. Weather isn't so important there unless it's Mary Higgins Clark describing a bad storm her heroine needs to escape. I think if it spans time, then it's probably okay to mention something about the leaves changing or the snow falling. I think weather becomes cliche when it's become the focus of a description. Someone waxing on about the value of a good breeze during a heat wave is probably going to get me to skip to the next part. But if it's something that's a major part of your story, I'd say you can use it as you see fit. Quite a bit, actually. My first book has a world set in an almost perpetual between spring and summer climate, but that's temperature control by the big creators of the world. The third book in that series takes place primarily in a desert followed by a mega-city boiling with heat and people.[/quote]
Not much, takes place on an orbital ring that is kept a balmy 75 degrees. Though if it got a hole it would be a chilly-ish radioactive vacuum that would be non-ideal for the visitors and inhabitants.
I wish. My story mainly takes place in L.A California and Canada but Canada between April and September so though the Californian's recognize subtle temperature drops everything is basically nice weather. Unfortunately weather only effects certain moments in the book because mostly I'm emphasizing the artificial nature of television where everything is sunny unless plotwise it isn't. We just had a ice storm here the other day turning all the trees into swarovski crystal it would be nice to work some of that imagery into a novel, unfortunately all of my books even waiting don't seem to acknowledge winter.
I absolutely deal with weather, but I write more about actual weather events than the general 'weather.' And seasonal changes also factor in. My story contains a blizzard which traps one of my characters, a thunderstorm which affects river water levels, and a few other more minor events or conditions. However, my story takes place in rural settings in the late 1800s, and weather had to be dealt with back then. It wasn't possible to just roll up the window and ignore it. I love reading stories that contain seasonal details, so this isn't a problem for me at all.
I write stories set 2000 years ago that span several years, so weather comes into play a lot, how long and how hard it is to get from place to place, and it also serves as kind of a calendar for the reader. As for dealing specifically with a day's weather, I may mention it in the opening setting paragraph of a chapter (I also change settings a lot) so if it is hot and humid, I may describe the steaminess around the Tigris River and the hot still air, or the snowfall in the Armenian highlands. These help place the reader in the new time and place. As for a specific weather event, only if it is exciting and relevant to the story: a storm at sea, a snow storm so bad everyone has to hunker down for a few days, and so forth. Otherwise, they are just sweating or freezing, or enjoying the fresh spring breeze.
I use weather when it seems relevant/useful to paint the character's mood, not really to set a scene. For example, less like "it was a dark and stormy night" and more like "she tugged at her girdle again, annoyed it was still so humid."
