What's your book weather?

Great Smokey Mountains  

 Tendrils of smokey mist curl through the trees, dampening the air to curl my hair. It’s called the breath of dragons…

How often does weather or climate factor into your stories? 

When I write fantasy—all the time. To me, fantasy and nature go hand in hand. Rumbling thunder and earth quakes are the result of incredible power moving through. Mist hides monsters. And twilight is for smoldering gazes that ignite. 

Our environments—rain, sleet, or shine—effect our emotions. Rainy days make us want to curl up on the couch with a hot cuppa the same way bright blue skies make us want to run around outside. And when I think of my favorite books they all feature character emotions that are highlighted by the weather. Sort of like a movie soundtrack…only it’s book weather! 

Before writing this post I’d assumed weather only showed up in my fantasy stories. Then I thought about The Mars Strain and how it opens up on a steamy, summer day that contrasts with the cool, dry inside of the lab. 

I guess I can say weather and climate are part of my writing tools! Writers, do you like to emphasize character emotions or events with storms and sunshine? What's your book weather?

Weather in Fiction: Effective or Tedious?

Weather starts out as a huge part of my Wanted and Wired series…and just gets more important. In the very first scene of the very first book, a sniper lines up her target while rain beats down on a grim, gray future urbanscape. Later, we find out that storms — hurricanes in particular, and climate change more broadly — have shaped this fictional world and raised stakes that, in a climate-neutral alternative reality, might not have been such a big deal. Weather events are intentional, important to both character and plot.

So, yeah, I use weather and climate to propel a story. I think it can be an effective tool in your storyteller’s belt.

Just be careful not to overdo it. For instance, I love Dean Koontz (shameless fangirl here). Those early books of his were important to my teen brain development. So when someone recommended a Koontz book — the Jane Hawke series — a few years ago, I devoured it and all its sequels, and then eagerly recommended the whole thing to my critique partner. Well, she read the first one, and when I asked what she thought, she gave me a look and said, “He does love his long weather descriptions, doesn’t he?” 

Honestly, I hadn’t even noticed on first read, but when I looked back, holy crud, almost every chapter begins with some gloomy mood-music description of the weather. I guess it sets the tone or something, but it almost never has anything to do with the story itself. I can see how she thought it overwhelmed the story instead of deepening it.

And that, perhaps, is when weather becomes tedious: yes, use it to layer in plot or character points; no, don’t overdo it when it is just a ruffle tacked on to the story.

p.s. — I would still rec the Jane Hawke books. They’re super fun. Just skim the weather bits if they bug you.

Weather: From Window Dressing to Antagonist

 Question of the week: How often does weather/climate factor into my stories?

Sometimes the presence of weather/climate is negligible. Others, it's an external conflict for one arc of the story. Occasionally, it's significant enough to be the primary antagonist for the whole book. 

Climate was less of an issue in my Immortal Spy UF series. It functioned primarily as window dressing to show the seasonal passage of time or establishing "this is not earth" settings. Once in a while, climate changes served to show-vs-tell the upper levels of magic in action. It rarely took center stage because my protagonist would be slightly inconvenienced by such changes, but not threatened. She's the kind of not-a-human who has to remember to wear a coat in the blizzard simply to blend in, not because she's cold. 

However, in my Fire Born HF series, the grueling hot, arid climates in the first book were boons for my fire-warrior protagonist. OTOH, the persistent winter in the second book was a huge problem for her since ingesting moisture of any kind is toxic and relentless cold is crippling. Her circulatory system isn't blood-based, it's fire-based. Fire + water = bad. Safe to say the climate in Book 2 was an inescapable antagonist.

My current HF WiP takes place in a world of elementals, so climate is more than pivotal, it's personal, political, and very present.

Climate/weather is such a wonderful tool for writers. It can be a passive presence that sets the mood or a violent death-insisting character. It can dominate as a theme or subtly evoke emotions in the reader. 

Mood lighting for the ages.

So this week's subject is how much does the wether affect your stories. The answer for me is r4elly quite simple: It's another part of the environment of my tales and that menas it may as well be a character. In my currenty story, the weather is extremely important. TRhe character are in a new town, and being hunter=d. They are dealing with a dark night and a very heavy fog, mening their ability to see what is stalking them is very limited. in other tales the weather plays its pazrt. Funerals with sunlight play out differentoy than funerals in the rain. in one of my stories involving Jonathan crowley, the monster hunter, one of his enemies is trying to get away in a snow storm. That chNges everything and rdically at that, There is no definite=ive answer for me., except that the weather can be a mild s mood lighting or as important as any min charcter depending on the situation. The one thing I promise yu, is that the weather plays its part.

The Witch Collector #Bookstagram

Man, I almost missed today's post! I've been under the weather and writing, so my mind isn't on point. And I would've hated to have missed today because I love love love Bookstagram! I'm a photography fanatic and have even done headshots, graduation pics, and engagement photos for various people. Graphics are a fun pastime for me, and having a book coming out soon that I can showcase makes that hobby even better. 

If you follow me on Instagram, all those graphics you see are made by me, unless I share a Bookstagram photo created by someone else. Canva is my go-to for this, although I've also used Bookbrush. There are all sorts of ways to do your own mock-ups and flat lays--free. For instance, this is just a Canva stock photo with my book image on top. I used a shadowing effect to give it a more 'real' appearance since I don't have paperbacks yet.

Here are a few more I made on Canva:

**For an easy, free book mockup tool, check this out. This is how I made the paperback image above. Below, I used the digital cover + shadowing again.

Even cooler?? When other people Bookstagram your book!

I have mad respect for Bookstagrammers. Just trying to curate my own little baby Insta is a grand task. I can't imagine the time and work they put into some of their images. I mean, hello, @myfriendsarefiction built a BOOK THRONE for The Witch Collector. That's WILD. I still can't get over it. And there will be more images to come in September from various book bloggers on Insta. We won't even talk about BookTok yet. I'm struggling in that department. One social media platform conquer party at a time ;)

Do you have a favorite bookish Insta account??

XOXO,

Instagram Time Sinks

 Pretty Instagram photos haven't been on my list of things to do. Should probably be. Aren't. In part because cats and a moveable composition aren't compatible. I do realize I could maybe go somewhere in this house and close a door with the ever so helpful felines on the other side of it. I just haven't. Instead, I play with virtual photos - these were ads that ran on Facebook and got posted (but not boosted) on Instagram. They did fine. 

The issue for me is that I can spend a bunch of time on photos, or I can steal that time back for working on a book. Given that I've had to take on a day job (living in a house big enough to accommodate four adults - one with mobility issues is more expensive than  two people living in a 34' boat - who knew) the hours available for writing have shrunk considerably. 

I'm going to opt for words over photos most of the time. So while these are a little flat and shiny rather than textured and lush like Jeffe's lovely photos, the ads are the closest I get to Instagram-worthy shots. If I want yet another job, I'll figure out some means of creating clever TikToks cause nothing says time sink like an amateur doing video editing.

Bookstagram The Mars Strain!

 This week's topic is right up my alley. If you follow me on Instagram you know I love photography, and bookstagram falls right into that category! 

I had a lot of fun finding a NASA shirt. And naturally I had some old test tubes laying around—bookstagram fun! 

Crystal at Reading Between the Wines Book Club does a fabulous job with all of her bookish picks. @ginandtolkein have also swayed my next reads with their shots. 

Tell me, do you have a favorite Bookstagrammer? 

Not a visual person

This week we here at SFF Seven are trying our hands at creating bookstagrams: staged photos that feature our books for the purposes of posting on Instagram. I've seen these things floating around, and it would be so flattering to have one made for one of my books. But by and large they haven't been, and in any case, I wouldn't be the right person to do it.

See, I'm not a visual person.

In the edit letter for my first book, I remember my editor asking basically what my characters looked like because the book was sparse on physical -- read: visual -- descriptions. I was like, hmm, Mari's a south Texan from Whataburger country and Heron lived in Egypt before his mamas adopted him, so probably they both have brown hair and eyes, medium brown skin. Mari's tallish and Heron's lanky. And... that's about it? 

Apparently it was not enough for a cover designer, and honestly, not quite enough for readers either. They wanted a "he's so hot" long description of my hero's pulchritude. But I guess I had a hard time delivering what readers wanted because that's not what really gets me going. I lean hard into textures and smells and sounds and tastes, because those are the senses that move me emotionally. 

To me, visual is seeming, which is not the same thing as being.

Visuals rarely convince me to buy a book, so if I created a bookstagram for my own book it wouldn't feel authentic or right. Which is probably why, although I have an Instagram account, I mostly post pics of my pets and stuff that I find in the garden. 

Though, all that said, these cakes that match book covers are super cool. And naturally, if somebody ever made fanart for something I'd written, I would lose my shit. That would be amazing.