Welcome to the Write Club newsletter, written by yours truly, Jayna Locke. The purpose of these posts is to inspire creativity for our fellow writers of short fiction. I also share our writing group’s fiction writing prompts.
In this edition, we’re going to talk about some ways to infuse your writing with the sights and sounds of the seasons.
Source: Meta AI
Oh Fall! How We Love Thee!
If the changing of the seasons and the aroma of mulching leaves isn’t the perfect kick in the sensory solar plexus, I don’t know what is. Now, if you live on the equator, in coastal Florida, in Australia, or any number of other places with a more tropical climate, you most likely do not encounter this particular annual phenomenon. In that case, you may need to travel to New England or the U.S. Midwest (I recommend Minnesota, but yes I’m biased), or in lieu of that, buy an Autumn scented candle. As a final option, simply feel blessed that you get to use the full breadth of your imagination’s capabilities.
I digress. What I’m talking about is bringing your senses to life and using them to create your setting and help build your story.
Weather patterns, sea breezes, dust storms, pelting rain, ice crystals on windows… any and all of these things can shape your writing and provide a powerful backdrop for your tale to unfold. Let’s look at some ideas for how weather, seasons and the elements can help bring stories to life.
1. Emotional Mirror and Mood Setter
While it’s stating the obvious, a weather pattern can reflect a character’s inner state. That’s why there’s a proverbial dark and stormy night in the consciousness of every writer, and why no good spooky story happens on a brilliantly sunny day in June.
Stormy weather just naturally suggests things are not going well. Rain sluicing down windows can mirror sadness, rage, or grief. A dull gray sky laden with swollen rain clouds can signify a sullen mood, while a sudden break in the storm can be the harbinger of hope. Of course it’s easy to deliver these mood setters with a heavy hand, so one must be careful. Use nuances. Add them as a touch of seasoning, not a thick sauce. In doing so, you can harmonize your story’s emotional tone with what is going on in the world around your character, give abstract feelings a more tangible form, and hopefully build empathy with your reader.
2. Symbolism and Thematic Resonance
Another way to employ seasons and weather patterns in your stories is as a kind of thematic glue that holds your story together, providing breadth and depth that actually tells part of the story. A person walking along a muddy path, for example, is challenged by this remnant of the rain. You needn’t say in words that he is miserable and cannot get to his destination soon enough. The thick mud he must slog through does that for you.
Weather and seasons can also act as a symbolic shorthand for life’s phases. Again, it’s stating the obvious, but springtime is symbolic of youth or rebirth, summer symbolizes passion, promise and abundance, autumn is the corollary of decline, and winter is the perfect symbol of endurance… or of course death.
3. Conflict Catalyst and Plot Device
Ah, conflict! This is one of my favorite things about writing. How can I make my characters struggle? What is keeping them from attaining their goals, or what sudden life events have thrown a wrecking ball at their plans? A weather system can be a nice device, making the environment an active participant rather than a static backdrop.
Storms, droughts, blizzards, or heat waves can drive action, introduce obstacles, or force characters together in unexpected ways. That blasted harmattan wind my Nigerian friends speak of will make a mess of freshly hung laundry. Torrential rains can cause a landslide that makes leaving the family vacation impossible, just when said family had determined they could not handle one more day together without going blinking mad.
Whenever you’re stuck for a story idea, contemplate dripping rain, thunderheads as tall as mountains crackling with lightning, freak snowstorms on New Year’s Eve, or the plight of a storm chaser that finds himself being chased by a storm. Something will come to you.
4. Atmospheric Immersion and Sensory Texture
Sensory details are delicious, sensual, terrifying, and itchy. The smell of rain on hot concrete, the crunch of frost under foot, wet droplets on lips, the biting sting of ice crystals in a hard wind… all of these things help immerse readers and make settings vivid and real. This is why literary writers (like yours truly) sometimes get accused of not being plot driven, because we love building a story around characters and sensory details. Don’t let that deter you from doing it. I promise it’s not the antithesis of plot.
It’s just that, as with all good things, it’s a matter of moderation. Build texture into your story the way a painter layers color to create depth and enhance a scene with the richness of light against dark. Physical details like rain dripping off a hat brim enhance a story’s believability, which can pull the reader into a deeper and more immersive experience, no matter how fantastical the story may be.
5. Temporal Rhythm and Narrative Shape
The changing of seasons can lend rhythm to storytelling and give structure to your tale because of our inherent sense of time always going by and going by. Seasonal changes can mark cycles, transitions, or the passage of years, anchoring a story’s progression in something universal. For example, a love story unfolding across four seasons could be very rich and poignant, as the environment traces the arc of the relationship. Love can blossom, die, and be renewed like cyclical seasons.
I hope this gives you something fresh to ponder!
Our Fall 2025 Write Club Writing Prompts
Well, October came and went since my post in September about five common mistakes writers make. So to catch up here, I’ll provide both of our fall prompts. For October, our Write Club group chose the prompt, “package.” The possibilities for that one are endless. Think about package deals, Christmas packages and birthday packages. Do you remember the time in history when people received letter bombs? And remember the Uni-Bomber? No? Well, read up on him. He’d make a great subject for a historical fiction story.
For November, our writing prompt is “holiday.” Although we are heading into the holiday season, this one is wide open as well. People can “take a holiday,” “go on a holiday,” or “observe a holiday.” The word can call to mind a day off from work or school, or a three month sojourn across the globe. What if two friends decide to go on a holiday together to the other side of the world and one chickens out? The other can feel shattered that the trip fell apart or set off on the adventure alone. Perhaps she will have the adventure of a lifetime and the other will realize she missed out. Maybe the relationship won’t survive the strain if one of the two besties decides to hunker down and work a corporate job while the other becomes a glamorous world traveler. All these stories and more are just waiting to be told.
When you allow your mind to wander and let settings, scenes and characters take shape in your mind, there is no end to what you might come up with. How do you get started on a story? What are your favorite ways of getting into creative writing mode? I’d love to hear from you.
Learn More About Write Club
Write Club is an online writers’ group for short story authors, with a focus on writing for mainstream publications, literary journals and genre magazines. We are committed to publishing our work in the many professional publications and short story anthologies accepting submissions. Some of our members are successfully published, and others are on their way, with the help of the honest yet caring critiques from our workshop members. In fact almost all of my published short stories were written from Write Club prompts.
How Does the Community Work?
Each month we launch a new writing prompt. Write Club members are required to write a short story based on the prompt, and then review and critique each other’s stories. These requirements are central to who we are. Every writer needs an outside eye to help them see what they may have missed and to provide perspective. This invaluable feedback can make all the difference in taking a story from promising to published.
The next phase is to revise our stories based on the workshop feedback, and (optionally) do another round of critiques. This method helps us to prepare our manuscripts for professional editors.
Is It Possible to Join Write Club?
While we purposefully remain a small group to ensure that we can all read each of the other stories that are submitted for critique each month, we do occasionally welcome in a new writer with experience who is looking for an online writing community for mutual support, writing critique and comradery. If you are interested in exploring whether Write Club is a fit for you, visit us in our Discord server or reach out via my Contact page.
Note: If you enter our Discord server you will be in a waiting area where we can chat with you and learn more about your interests.
Here’s what’s expected of our members:
- You should already have a strong foundation in short story writing, excellent English skills, and a desire to continue your development as a fiction writer.
- You should have the goal of publishing your work in professional publications.
- You must be ready to commit to writing one story each month.
- You must be willing to provide helpful feedback to other writers and support their journey as well as your own. We are all required to critique every story produced within the community.
Looking for Prompts and Writing Resources?
If you’re just looking for inspiration, watch for our monthly writing prompts, which are published at the beginning of each month on jaynalocke.com. Feel free to use them to inspire your short stories. You can post them on Hive, Medium, Vocal, your WordPress blog, or wherever you like. Note that we do not offer critiques for those who are not members of our workshop. This is just for inspiration!
All we ask is that you provide a link back to our prompt post that inspired you so others can be inspired too. Thank you!
I love to share tips and ideas about creative writing! Here are two treasure troves for you:
- You can find many of my tips and resources on my website, in the On Writing section.
- I also share writing tips in The Ink Well community on Hive. See the complete catalog for the full list of articles.
Have fun and keep writing!
Featured image source: Generated with Leonardo.ai
About Jayna Locke
Jayna Locke is a Minnesota writer who has had a lifelong love of fiction. Her short stories have appeared in a range of literary journals, including Great Lakes Review, Portage Magazine, and Bright Flash Literary Review, as well as several anthologies.
Her collection of short stories, Somewhere in Minnesota, is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Kirk House Publishers, and indie bookstores. She is reachable through her contact form at Contact Jayna.