June, heat

INVESTIGATION

Weather changes our bodies, our minds, our worlds. We know from Shakespeare that weather can change a story. Weather can be our metaphor, our scene. It can move our plot. It can take control away from our characters.

This month, we will think about how to use weather in our narrative nonfiction. Unlike in fiction, in nonfiction, the weather kind of has to align with our plot points. We can’t pretend that a hurricane hit in September if it really hit in June. We can’t pretend there was a flash flood when really it was just a thunderstorm.

We can speculate, though. We can imagine. And we can go deeper into what did happen during the hurricane or the thunderstorm or the flash flood. Maybe it was boring. Maybe, during the big weather event, everything was okay. If that’s the case, it’s also meaningful.

EXPLORATION

First, read the flash nonfiction pieces for this week.