Creating Atmosphere with Atmosphere: How to Use Weather as a Literary Device

"Weather is necessary to a narrative of human experience." -- Mark Twain

Effectively used as a literary device, weather can create an atmosphere that can make or break a scene. It sets the mood, mirrors the stages of plot development, enhances themes, and creates tension where before there was none.

Weather can also drive emotion.

Think of a sad character. Does it help your reader feel her emotion if you describe the sunrise on a clear, perfectly temperate day, or would it set a better mood if there were undulating clouds hanging over the scene like a smothering blanket? Could you use contrast to shine a light on a feeling?

In this book by Benjamin X. Wretlind, an author, retired U.S. Air Force weather forecaster, and life-long weather nerd, meteorology is broken down as it relates to the fiction writer. It covers a variety of weather elements and ties them to a study conducted to see what emotions are most often brought up in a reader.

Written in a non-scientific way with literary examples, full color pictures, charts, and 40 exercises (and a little humor), Creating Atmosphere with Atmosphere: How to Use Weather as a Literary Device hopes to be your go-to guide if you're looking to use weather in a way that connects emotionally and pulls readers into your world.

So write about that cloud, that tornado, that hurricane...and bring the storm.