If you're sitting there thinking, Barb, you've written about using the weather in stories, even starting with the weather, before. Come up with something new. Yeah, yeah. The column you're thinking about ran in 2016. I just reread it, and I think my advice is solid. You can read that post here: https://www.sleuthsayers.org/2016/06/warning-theres-storm-coming.html.
Today, I'm going to come at this topic from a different angle. I belong to a Facebook group whose members post each Monday the first lines of books and stories they read the prior week. The intent is to showcase good or great first lines. Sometimes people share more than the first sentence of a story. Sometimes they share the first paragraph. (I've been guilty of this myself.) I enjoy reading more than a sentence because the additional words can help me to get a much better feel for the work at hand. And reading first lines and first paragraphs that don't grab me is also helpful. It helps me understand what works and what doesn't and why.
Here's where the weather comes in. To my surprise, the openings that catch my attention the most each week, the ones that make me eager to read a book or story, use the weather. I find this is especially true if I have the opportunity to read a first paragraph rather than just a first sentence. Those extra words can enable an author to truly set the scene--or more to the point, to set the mood. Mood, more than anything, is what pulls me into a story, and few things can truly set mood better than the weather.
Raymond Chandler famously made this point about weather and mood in the opening to his story "Red Wind":
"There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge."
Maybe you'd want to read Chandler's story because of his exquisite way with words. Maybe he could have been talking about dog grooming and still draw you in. But he was talking about the weather--in this case, the wind--and how it affects people. And that's the point: the weather can affect people. Characters are people, but so are readers.
Here's another great example from Julia Spencer-Fleming, from her first book, In the Bleak Midwinter. (I also think this is one of the best first sentences ever.):
"It was one hell of a night to throw away a baby. The cold pinched at Russ Van Alstyne's nose and made him jam his hands deep into his coat pockets, grateful that the Washington County hospital had a police parking spot just a few years from the ER doors."
Spencer-Fleming is another author who knows how to lure the reader in. Is it a coincidence that she used the weather to do it in her first book, which won a string of awards? I don't think so.
So, maybe Leonard's advice about openings and weather deserves a second caveat:
Never open a book with the weather--except (1) if the weather is pertinent to the plot in that opening scene or (2) if you want to use the weather to set the mood. If either exception applies, shine that opening until it glistens like a desert highway on a brutal summer day and you're praying the sea of melted tar you're approaching is but a mirage.
Maybe Leonard was just writing before climate change made weather more dramatic and pertinent!
ReplyDeleteThat's funny, Janice. Maybe he was.
ReplyDeleteRules are made to be broken. There are no absolutes in writing.Guidelines, yes; better ideas, yes, but absolutes, no. Having an 'absolute' pointed out as "oh-you-can't-do-that" has squelched many a good story and has stopped many a good writer cold.
ReplyDeleteExcellent comment!
DeleteThanks for stopping by, both of you. I wish I knew who you were.
DeleteI am at a loss to tell you how much I appreciated this post. In the Navy, Well Done was the highest compliment. Well Done!
ReplyDeleteThat is very kind of you, George. Thank you.
DeleteI love stories that open with weather. I like to know what's going on outside - but then, I live in South Dakota, where weather can get fairly dramatic. I wrote a short story - Drifts - which opened and closed with the weather, because winter was the murder weapon.
ReplyDeleteYou can't get more plot-oriented weather than that, Eve.
DeleteThe examples you use give the weather dramatic edge, for sure. Too often those first lines about the weather are dreadfully banal. So, like any writing "rule" you can break it if you do it well and it serves the story. "It was a fine summer day" makes me yawn.
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
DeleteThanks for the article. This popped in out of the blue regarding "It was a fine summer day". Gave me a chuckle.
DeleteIt was a fine summer day when George Blake woke up dead. Yes, you might say that if George was dead he would not know it. But, George was a know-it-all. Had been since 1st grade. Always knew—everything—always. And he was always—ALWAYS—right. So—yes—George knew he was dead.
And that he deserved it.
DeleteGreat post, especially the examples. Leonard had his own caveats, and they are often overlooked in a reading of his "Ten Rules." As he introduces the rules, he says they work for him, and he makes a point to feel free to skip them. I've always appreciated his rules compared to other writers' rules, because I think he was pretty clear that he put them together for himself and didn't expect everyone to follow them. In fact, we shouldn't, or we would all sound like him. If you read his early works, he breaks some of his own rules, which makes me think he gathered them along the way in his long career. In a full reading of his "never open a book with weather," he writes, "there are exceptions," so I imagine if he were around today to read your post he would delight in your examples.
ReplyDeleteWhat a nice thought. I hope so.
DeleteAnd thanks.
DeleteTwo of my favorite openings are mood openings with weather:
ReplyDelete"The evening sky was streaked with purple, the color of torn plums, and a light rain had started to fall when I came to the end of the blacktop road that cut through twenty miles of thick, almost impenetrable scrub oak and pine and stopped at the front gate of Angola penitentiary."
from The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke
"Her hair is curly and gold on the pillow, her skin white in the heat lightning that trembles beyond the pecan trees outside the bedroom window."
from Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burk
Yep, mood draws you in. Thanks for sharing those openings, O'Neil.
DeleteThat is a great opening in Bleak Midwinter, and of course Red Wind is a classic.
ReplyDeleteI found myself thinking how many musical pieces use weather for effect or as metaphors. Obvious examples are Raindrops, Riders on the Storm, Thunderstruck, Thunder, Last Kiss, and Mariah (song and a movie, not that I particularly like either). Weather shows up in opera and symphonic music. Disney included segments with weather in Fantasia.
Weather appears in other arts– paintings and plays and films. The heartbreaking Little Match Girl wouldn’t exist without freezing weather. So perhaps you’re right. Perhaps we’re unnecessarily restricting ourselves.
I think of that old Methodist edict:
(a) All things in moderation.
(b) Including moderation.
I think a reason we so often hear, don't start with the weather, is because so many authors have started with the weather in a boring way. They're simply setting the scene: it was a lovely summer day. That's boring. But if you use the weather right, it can be anything but boring.
DeleteGreat examples, Barb. I consider all first lines "mentor texts." Some are worth reading and imitating and others are not. Thanks for sharing your astute insights.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, Beth. And thanks.
DeleteI'm late to the party. Sorry. Good stuff, Barb. When people say never to begin with the weather I quote the first lines of Ed McBain's The Pusher. "‘Winter came in like an anarchist with a bomb. Wild-eyed, shrieking, puffing hard, it caught the city in cold, froze the marrow and froze the heart."
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rob. That McBain opening is good indeed.
DeleteI've heard Leonard's caution for years, and in the gritty little desert town of my novels, the weather is definitely un-dramatic anyway. But to open one novel I wanted to show how the heat and the dry wind made the locals tend to gather around the swamp cooler in the downtown bar. I was afraid I'd get called for coming too close to that opening line of Chandler's (which I love) but instead I was told it held up the opening too much. Get to the action, I was told. So I threw it out. But I may just see if I can paste it back in. Personally, I love it when the weather sets up the mood before you even know what the story is about.
ReplyDeleteEugenia, maybe the issue is that the opening was too long. Instead of putting it back in in its entirety, can you trim it?
DeleteAn excellent article Barb. This is your fb friend Huma. I just love winter, thunder, snow and rain in a story. I love stories like Three Blind Mice by Agatha Christie or Agatha's Sittaford Mystery for the lovely winter depiction. Yes there should be no absolutes as unchangeable rules of writing. I dont mind the cliche' beginning line, "It was a dark and stormy night." Yes you are right that we learn both by reading good first lines as well as by reading not so catchy ones.
ReplyDeleteThank, Huma. As with all writing, it depends on how you do it.
Delete