What place does weather have in your writing?

You’ve probably heard this piece of advice from writer Elmore Leonard: Don’t start your novel by describing the weather. In his 10 rules of writing, Leonard advised against writing about the weather if it’s only used to create atmosphere and not a charac­ter’s reaction to the weather.

While this may be true, weather has a place in literature.

Weather can amplify the emotion of a scene. What if it was a grey, drizzly day when your character realized she would never be a mother? Maybe the raindrops trickling down her window were a metaphor for tears and despair.

Or maybe your character realized his marriage was over the same day an ice storm in his town sent cars crashing and people slipping on black ice.

Consider your own writing and see how you could use the weather to deepen a scene or heighten tension.