Weather and terrain "work" in a novel when they become virtual characters in the story. When they're delivered as expository filler, it fais.
Novels in which weather and terrain play a significant role?
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It's hard to argue with that, though expository filler is not automatically a bad thing, if it isn't overdone.
There are certainly novels where weather and terrain play a major role (hence this thread), but just because their role is more minor (or sporadic) doesn't automatically turn descriptions of them into filler.
I absolutely agree. The original poster said his novel "would be influenced massively by the weather and terrain"; that was my context.
I recall a detective novel years ago set against the background of a hurricane striking the Gulf Coast. At some point, the author completely abandoned his who-dunnit and veered off into l-o-n-n-n-g descriptions of the damage being wrought—storm surges, foundations washing out, condos toppling. I had to put it down.
What is filler? In magazine writing, "filler" can be more interesting than the feature articles.
In novels, description of weather and terrain can do nothing more than add verisimilitude, or show setting, or enhance mood and tone, , and it's dome more than an adequate job of justifying its place in the novel.
I think the phrase "everything must move the plot.story forward" is nonsense. Too many things in any novel don't do this.
Cut out everything that doesn't actually move the plot/story forward, and you're left with a screenplay.
To some, almost any description is fluff and filler. To others, page after page after page of description is the stuff dreams are made of.
i don't ask myself if something is filler, or if it moves the plot/story forward, of it it's "needed", I just ask whether I like reading the story more with this, or without it.
"The Road" By Cormac Mcarthy. The world is so depressing and bleak you almost want to cry, and Mcarthy's language is absolutely fantastic.
Where Mcarthy is concerned, I agree with The Atlantic. He uses the most beautiful language possible to say something complete unimportant.
It's just taste, but I can't stand any of his novels. To me, he always takes the "literary" way out at the end, and leaves no hope.
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