Stormy Weather

 

My novels are all set in summertime, my favorite season. In Promiscuous Mode, (a computer term) my work in process, the protagonist, Laura, is consumed by problems and conflicts. Weather symbolizes her issues. Just after she finds out the man who hired her is dead, she encounters his funeral procession in the rain. More rain pours down when a lowlife character is snooping on her life. Another incident is a thunderstorm on a lake when Laura is fishing with a friend and his daughter. They find an old boathouse to shelter in and of course something happens. More conflict, more problems. During another storm, someone snoops around the house where Laura has gone to keep a frightened young woman company. My husband says the North Woods have never had such a rainy summer.

In Festival Madness, the heat and dust at the Burning Man Festival echo the problems for main character Emma. A pea soup early morning fog in the Adirondacks delays the characters from their floatplane trip. Weather worms its way into everything. 

I use fog in World of Mirrors, as well. A thick blanket of it fog hovers over the Baltic, and my characters must cross the shipping lanes in a tiny sailboat with no wind and a noisy motor. Bad guys are searching for them. Nothing good happens. I almost scared myself writing those scenes. 

My only novel with a winter scene is The Shadow Warriors. The protagonist passes information on a park bench in the Boston Public Garden on a frigid day. No swan boats, no flowers, just danger and drama. That’s good isn’t it? 

Characters freezing, sweating, wet, bedraggled, suffering.  That’s what we like in fiction. And the story can turn. Remember the thousands of daffodils that became the first sign of spring in Dr. Zhivago? What a welcome sight after a Russian winter.  

Make weather an antagonist in your fiction, and you have build-in drama and conflict. Man against nature. Hasn’t it always been that way?  

See what these bloggers have to say about weather and fiction. 

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Connie Vines http://connievines.blogspot.com/
Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Helena Fairfax  http://helenafairfax.com/
Dr. Bob Rich http://wp.me/p3Xihq-EP
Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.blogspot.ca
Kay Sisk http://kaysisk.blogspot.com
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com