Weather Can Set a Tone

by Christine Stamp

Our passion for writing comes from somewhere deep inside each of us.  It comes from a place that is unknown to many. It is a way that we express our feeling, our highs and our lows. The seeds of our writing are planted within our imaginations and there they are nurtured and lovingly cared for until we are ready to bring them forth and with pen and paper give them life. Our passion for writing can also be affected by outside happenings and developments around us such as the weather.

The weather can set the mood of your opening scenes or give punch to the turmoil that the characters are going through. Actual weather can impact not only your story, but it can affect you as a writer. Depending on the weather at the time, it can and does affect your mood.

Cold: we feel the chill, the invigoration, or maybe the pain of being too cold. How does this affect your characters? How does this affect you as a writer?

Put yourself in their shoes, how does it feel to suck air into your lungs that is so cold that it makes your chest burn? What does it feel like to feel that brisk, but refreshing cold of being outside for a snowball fight or the making of a snowman with those that you love?

How would it feel to be so cold that you don’t know if you’ll ever get warm again or even survive? We as writers can go outside on those bitterly cold days or nights and experience how it feels.

Gray and rainy: you know those dreary days that are made for staying in bed and sleeping with the covers pulled up over your head.

When the barometric pressure drops and the skies are overcast with billowing clouds of gray and the air is filled with the threat of rain or snow.  It is on those days that all our heart desires is to sit wrapped up in front of a crackling fire with a hot cup of cocoa, a bowl of popcorn, and a good book.

Or a gray day might affect you in a completely different manner. It might make you sad, miserable, and depressed. What ever its effect on you, put it down on paper and make your characters experience it, it will make them real and give them depth.

Warmth: the warmth of the sun on your face, feel the heat, the sweat that forms in your hair and runs down your face. Feel the burn when you can’t get out of the sun and then give these same feelings to your characters.

Remember the feel of a beautiful spring day, after a long and difficult winter. Recall the smell of the air after a rain shower, or how terrified you were during a severe thunderstorm or the impact of a tornado.

Interact with people and nature.  Build upon those things that you experience. It will make you a better writer, and give depth and dimension to not only your characters, but your writing as well.