The sky is a constantly changing canvas, waiting for writers to capture its essence. It’s like a character, changing the mood and feel of a piece of writing. Think of the lowering skies of Wuthering Heights, brooding and menacing like Heathcliff, where the terrain and skies almost seem to live and breathe. Big skies, dark skies, cloudy skies – description of the skies impacts on the action taking place below them.
Think of TV and film – how the first sceneand are often of dark skies, laden with rain – and the impact those scenes have on the viewer. They know something bad has happened, or is about to happen. For the first activity think about a TV show of film that references or uses the weather in a dramatic or interesting way. How do they use the weather to its full effect? Write down any observations made about this as you are going to use that to write your own short scene where you use the weather to help convey a mood or forthcoming incident.
