It was a dark and stormy night … by Debbie Bennett
Was there ever a bigger cliché in opening a piece of fiction? Way back in the when, I wrote a round-robin story with a group of friends; we each had to write a few paragraphs and then pass it on. The opening line was It was a dark and stormy knight. And our brave knight was indeed dark and stormy! I’m not sure what happened to the story – I’m sure there must be copies somewhere, but this was probably pre-internet. I’m writing this in the midst of the Beast from the East – the huge cold snap that seems to be taking up 95% of British news right now. Like we’ve never had snow before? Although the wind-chill of allegedly -10˚ is rare! We’ve even resorted to stuffing an old shirt in the airing cupboard vent, and the kitchen extractor fan is sucking in cold air. But weather in stories? Off the top of my head, I’m thinking that weather is generally used to isolate characters in fiction. The good guys are marooned on an island by a storm; the fog is so thick, we can’t see the bad gu...