Alright. You are starting your book with weather descriptions. Sometimes, it follows on to the next page! And the character is still not there. And readers start wondering if this is a fiction with a character or is it a Geography book in the study section. The same thing happens when you keep giving settings, too.
Now, this part is tricky. You can't keep the MC hanging on space, you do need a line or two about setting + time + even weather. Yes. Maybe in a line or two? And when you do that you have to add the tension.
This is it. "TENSION" is all that you need to write those lines of weather and settings.
Let me give an example: If you haven't read Mistborn yet, (I'm still reading it), go, search in google, and look at the first page. Do you see how the author gives the world + weather para?
Do you see what he really did there? You don't? Ok, here it is.
First:
What the author did is, simply start the first para with a character--MC or not. But first, it's a 'character' who was noticing the weather.
Second:
The MC wasn't 'liking' the weather. Why? Because in this world, ash falls from the sky. And the MC will have to go somewhere, and he wanted to wear a suit. But the ashy weather will ruin his suit if he wears it! Oufh! Such a drag! What a negative/moment-killing weather it is!
Third: I 'want' to read about the world that has this moment-killing, tense weather!
Now, here is the key that you can use as a story device:
Never mention the weather unless it's storming in the dry desert or raining fire in the clod Siberia or if it's a sand storm in the ocean.
Do you get my point? No.
It means, if you say the weather is 'warm' and 'sunny' say that the MC hates it. Add a phrase of tension, and add how your MC feels about this weather. And make her/him feel negative about it. If he feels good about it, your weather description is not important. Good is not a story. Good is not news. Bad is news--no matter how terrible I sound right now--it's true, in case, you really want a reader-base who will go through 300 pages of your book.
Does it mean you should never write about good, blissful world/ weather? Yes, you should!
If it's a world of bird-humans under the earth like that you see in Maleficent-2. If it's the Journey To The Center Of The Earth. If it's on another planet ... remember The Maritan? If it's the lake around the Hogwarts that has a killer willow-tree at a school ground!
Or if your MCs were in gutters or bad slums their whole life and suddenly they went to a magical place with greens and mountains. You can also add dinosaurs here. Your wish.
But don't talk about the weather unless it's like the movie 2012. And certainly not in your first page.
Another example of book: most of the early chapters of The Name Of The Wind starts with several paras of weather and climate and the settings. See how the author did it. Find that line of subtle tension/ snide remark of Old-Kvothe in those lines. You'll get it.
If this post helps you, please share it. It inspires me to write more such posts.
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