Over twenty years ago, much of writing was in the form of playing on Star Wars MUSH. If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically a bunch of friends playing a text based roleplaying game where we work together to write Star Wars fan fiction. Honestly, it’s a fantastic way to work on writing dialog and deep characterization because the stakes are low and the feedback is immediate. MUSH’s might be a topic for a different day this month.
One of my favorite scenes was with Justine Diamond. We had basically just met and it was early in our times playing together. The scene was brief, but one of the things that makes it stand out in my memory is how we used the weather to punctuate the emotions of the scene. Rain poured out of a blackened, starless sky, and as the dread of the scene began to crescendo, lightning flashed and thunder boomed, exaggerating the monstrous nature of my character and the isolation of her character.
Setting, when done well, is a character in the background of your scenes. As a character, setting is relatively passive, except when the weather comes into play. The clouds might part and a ray of sunlight can beam down during a moment of triumph or introspection. In my previous example, the characters can be pelted with rain or yelled at by an angry sky full of blinding light and fury. The setting can be secretive, with thick fog hiding the way forward.
The weather is the setting acting out in that moment. The seasons, on the other hand, can be a memorable part of world building.
Think about the common phrase associated with the cultural behemoth that is Game of Thrones. I’m sure we all told a friend or a coworker, “Winter is coming.” The seasons in that world work differently, where young children can go all their lives without knowing any other season other than summer, which is where another cheeky phrase: “Oh, my sweet summer child.”
The seasons do not need to be alien to be a part of the world building. Sometimes the changing of the seasons are used by the author to show transition or change, as we saw a few times in the Harry Potter stories.
Unless your entire story takes place inside a space ship, or perhaps a spinning city on The Moon, you might want to consider using the weather and the seasons as a tool in your writing.
On a completely different topic, The Repossessed Ghost is officially out tomorrow. That will be the topic of tomorrow’s post. I’m so excited! I hope everyone that reads it has a good time.