Marilyn's Musings

When I began working on my latest Work in Progress, a Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery, it was winter and we were having an unusually rainy season. The novel is set right after Christmas so all the rain and the havoc it was causing for real I reflected in what I was writing. I definitely knew how it felt to drive through a downpour so I could write easily about Tempe not being able to see through the sheet of rain. The earth was so saturated, roads were blocked by rivers of mud, making it particularly hazardous for night driving. In places parts of the hillsides slid down bringing boulders along with the saturated earth. Trees fell, taking out power lines causing the loss of electricity. In some places, people were without lights and water for three and four days. All of this was great fodder for my story. But I'm still in the middle of it and guess what? The weather has changed. Instead of being dark and gloomy, rain threatening every day, it's bright and sunshiny, colorful w...

No, you don't want to start your book with the weather like "It was a dark and stormy night." That become a taboo thing to do. However, by adding weather you can create suspense. Remember we all talk about the weather all the time. As I write this it's raining and has been raining all day. On Facebook, people have been talking about the snow and how tired of it they are and all the obstacles it creates for moving along with daily life. I've written about a blizzard where no one can get in or out and someone disappears. That was in one of my Deputy Tempe Crabtree mysteries, Intervention . In No Sanctuary the Santa Ana winds play an important part in creating a feeling of suspense. In my latest Rocky Bluff P.D. crime novel, An Axe to Grind , fog adds suspense to what is going on in the story. Take an example from the movies, thunder, lightning and blinding rain always complicate things for the hero--or hints at the imminent arrival of the bad guys or perhaps a mon...