Foggy Morning

 

My foggy backyard this morning

Weather as Inspiration

Remember some of the old novels (and movies) with foggy scenes. Sherlock Holmes comes to mind and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And Wuthering Heights. Fog comes across as an obstruction to clarity, not just in the scenery but in the plot. The characters have trouble seeing the problem and so do we.

A most effective use of fog appeared in the closing scene of the movie Casablanca. Who can forget the sense of uncertainty it gave us?

According to AI, fog is loaded with symbolism, e.g. impending doom, isolation, moral ambiguity, hidden truth. With all that luggage, you’d think fog would appear in more general fiction than it does. If fact, fog seems to be fading into the genre of horror.

Of course there are the novels where the plot depends less on characters and more on circumstances brought about by the weather. Many of these stories fall into the genre of dystopian fiction, sometimes post-apocalyptic. If that’s your interest, “Weird Weather” may be a source of inspiration- https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WeirdWeather.

Literary fiction, at least in what I’ve been reading lately, seems to ignore the weather. The characters living through an average plot don’t seem to sweat a lot, nor use umbrellas, or slip on sleet or brush off snow (unless the setting is the tundra).

I’ve finished a young adult novel about Calvin, who lives through a winter in 1942. He’s cold much of the time, the fireplace is the only warm spot in his house—a house, by the way, that groans and creaks with the wind.

I am gratified by the changing weather from hot to cold to in-between. And by the changing scenery winter and summer bring. Normal weather reassures us that all is well with the world. Catastrophic events come along to remind us of how much the weather means.