How many movies have you seen or books have you read that were laden with clichés? Think “burial on a dark, rainy day” or “snowed in for Christmas” types of scenes. As an author, you’ll want to learn how to use weather to create mood in a novel without making descriptions or situations so commonplace as to bore your readers.
Using weather to create mood in a novel is a valuable skill. An author can write the exact same scene twice, changing nothing but weather from one draft to the next. That change can give the rest of the scene an entirely different feeling. This is why you’ll want to determine what emotions you’re trying to evoke in your readers before implementing weather in a specific part of a story.
Think about your readers when you create mood in a novel with weather
Perhaps a character in your novel is driving down a highway on the way to meet a date for dinner. Imagine the scene with various types of weather and notice how the weather might cause different emotions in your readers. For instance, if the character is driving down the highway on a bright, sunny day with the top down in a convertible, readers might feel excited, light-hearted and free.
If you switch the weather in the scene to a torrential rainstorm or sudden snow squall, the whole mood changes from free and easy to feelings of suspense, danger and stress. This is why it’s important to think ahead and determine how you want your readers to feel before determining how you’ll use weather to create the mood.
What is pathetic fallacy and how can you use it to mirror a character’s emotions?
Authors sometimes employ a writing technique known as “pathetic fallacy” to create mood in a novel. This technique uses external forces (such as weather) to mirror a character’s emotions. If a character is confused or lost, you might set the mood by incorporating a dense fog into the scene. On the contrary, the lifting of a fog or use of a sunrise might demonstrate a character’s moment of clarity or a new vision.
Use weather to foreshadow coming events
Another way to use weather to create mood when writing a novel is to use it as a means of foreshadow. The darkening of the sky or a sudden crack of thunder and bolt of lightning might give readers a hint that something ominous is about to happen. Think of how various kinds of weather make you feel, then use that as a foundation to create moods throughout your next story.
