October 7, 2022

Recently I survived a week of 100+ degree temperatures. This is, unfortunately, nothing new where I live, but I also live without air conditioning in my home, so suffice it to say, I was basically dead for a week. While I sweated away, the last two of my remaining brain cells that weren’t fried to a crisp began to mull over the concept of weather in fiction. How often did I see weather feature in the plot of my stories? As an integral part of the setting? As a character in and of itself?

The answer: quite rarely. Thinking back on all my published and unpublished work, I have almost never given a single line of description or action to the weather.

Doesn’t that seem a bit remiss?

I’m born and raised in California, and before the world was in end-stage climate crisis, our weather was eerily mild. You could never tell what season you were in by looking out the window because it looked the same year round. But now that I’ve watched the world descend into climate chaos, I’ve lived through much more extreme weather events: wildfires, flash floods, excessive heat. Other parts of the world experience snowstorms, tornados, unending rain. These weather events are disrupting, all consuming. They’ve changed me, changed my life trajectory, and are a foundational human experience that everyone across the globe can relate to in one way or another.

And yet when I write I almost completely forget about including the weather.

It’s not like I don’t have examples. Brando Sando went ahead and wrote an entire series that centers around storms (Stormlight Archives, read it, it’s fabulous) and we’ve all read about that one snowstorm that forced the love interests to cuddle up for the night. But how often do we as writers include the everyday weather in our stories? When does that sudden rainshower force our character to take shelter in a sketchy inn? When does the warming temperature of late afternoon lead to a character taking off their jacket and revealing a mysterious scar? How often will it just be too dang cold for an adventure right now, and we spend the story indoors instead?

The more I thought about this, the more I realized I was missing out on a really cool, really helpful aspect of story writing. Weather, by nature, is outside human control. I can’t make the rain come, nor can I make it leave. It is the built in deus ex machina of our existence. On your way to work? Not anymore: high winds knocked a tree into the middle of the road. Going to the beach? Think again: fog has completely obscured the coastal highway. Want to work on your October blog post? No can do: excessive heat has destroyed your capacity to think coherent thoughts.

Friends, can you see what an amazing tool this can be for our stories? Now, I’m not saying drop a lightning storm into your plot to help the MC escape without there being any precedent for lightning to occur. That’s poor writing. But if you make sure to add the weather to your setting description, sprinkle in promises about it for your reader to follow, then it can easily and readily serve your plot at almost any moment.

Deus ex machina, but with actual pay off for the reader.

What does this look like in practice? Let’s take our traditional fantasy adventure: a group of ragtag heroes are walking their way across the lands to go face down the Big Bad. Let’s say it’s summer, so it’s hot. When it’s hot, tempers flare. Suddenly our ragtag group is a little more raggedy. Arguments break out, and hello! Thief insulted Knight and took it just a little too far. Now Knight has stomped off on her own. Well, they can’t go on ahead without Knight, so the search for her begins. Knight went into the nearby woods because she wanted the shade to help her cool off literally and figuratively. Our heroes find her, but before everyone can apologize and make up, they’re attacked! Battle time! The fight ends when Mage uses their storm spell to summon rain and winds to blow the baddies away. But oops, the high heat of summer meant that the soil was bone dry and unable to absorb the tons of magical water summoned. Now there’s a rushing flood and the party members get swept away and separated. And guess who ends up stranded together? Thief and Knight, forced to work together to find their friends and maybe have a couple heart-to-hearts along the way. All because it was hot as heck outside.

Weather is an active part of the setting, so it should play an active role in the story. You don’t have to have your world be like Earth with cataclysmic climate events caused by human hubris. Maybe just pay attention to where the sun is shining and where it isn’t, and have your characters react accordingly. At worst, you have created a more realistic setting to help your readers become immersed in the story. At best, you’ve just made your plot all the more interesting.

So…how’s the weather looking in your story?