Dark and Stormy Nights

My neighborhood is socked in by fog this morning. Driving to an early appointment, I became acutely aware of how slowly one must go in a fog to allow for the unexpected like the dog dashing out or the trashcan blown into the middle of the street. Allow for the unexpected. But you can't, can you? How do you allow for the car lurking, lights off, motor running. Waiting for YOU. If you're on foot, how, in a dense fog, do you allow for the assailant behind the tree? That's why so many mysteries, thrillers, and scary movies use fogs. Imagine Jack the Ripper's London with no fog. How about a bright sunny day? Loses something, doesn't it?

The setting is so very important in a story. In spite of the cliche, a mystery is more so when lit sporadically by a flash of lightning. I think all writers use it, albeit unconsciously sometimes.

I like to think of weather as a handy tool to use whenever the story needs it. In Death of a Second Wife (coming out in June) I use a late snow in the Alps to cover footprints and to hide a clue until I'm ready to let the snow melt and reveal it. In Scorpion House, set on the west bank of the Nile where it hardly ever rains, I needed an emergency at one point to throw the characters into fast gear. How about a flash flood? Great. One thing about an arid region. When it does rain, the water can't sink in so it runs off. I recalled a film loop I used to show when I taught earth science, in which a flash flood in the desert comes barreling down a dry river bed like the wrath of God. The topography of my setting, just east of the Valley of the Kings, was perfect for the flash flood from hell. So I made it rain.

Have you ever seen Body Heat with William Hurt and Kathleen Turner? Brilliant movie, and the way they used the sweltering, sticky, Florida Gulf Coast summer, the lazy saxophone . . . makes me hot just thinking about it. I've heard it said that setting is like a character in the story. Personally, I think it's more important than that.