By Caroline Clemmons
April is the month when showers bring May flowers. I
apologize to those who are still surrounded by snow. Spring has arrived in
North Central Texas.
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| My mom's favorite flower, iris |
Iris and daffodils are in bloom. Our hyacinths have
finished. This is the time of year I vow to plant more bulbs in the fall as
well as a couple of forsythia bushes.
However, this post is about weather and whether it works as one
of the characters in a book. I say it does—for some books. For instance, in several
of my romances the weather plays a major part of the plot.
In my first published romance, BE MY GUEST, the heroine was
trapped with the hero in a flood. In THE MOST UNSUITABLE COURTSHIP, a dust
storm isolated the main characters, one of whom was an asthmatic child. (Thanks to Beth Trissel for her help with the herbal treatments in that book.) In
LORRAINE, a tornado had the hero and heroine seeking protection in the kneehole
of a desk. Cozy, right?
In my latest release, TEXAS LIGHTNING, you can guess that lightning plays a
part. In MURDOCH’S BRIDE, snow isolated the human characters. In fact, I’ve
used snow in several books.
My theory is that a character doesn’t have to be human. Authors
use whatever they need to develop the story and make it as entertaining as
possible. Sometimes that includes using the weather to move the story forward.
