A howling gale

It's blowing a gale outside my window today, and I'm thinking about the kinds of gales that blow through our writing,

With the current flooding in England, many people's homes are uninhabitable and businesses have been destroyed.  We've had a series of fierce gales battering our coast, and they are set to continue for some days yet.  What a rich vein of stories we will be able to glean from these fierce winds.

There will be tales of people who've lost everything but bravely rebuild.  Some people will see the floods as the trigger to get out and make the break they've been wanting to do for some time.  It could be the trigger for someone to release themselves from the pressure to be the fourth generation going into the family business.  They may get a sense that life is too short and have the courage to claim their rightful career.

The gales will also trigger emotional storms of relationship breakdown and tension.  The news has been full of people in tears saying they can't go on.  How will they in your story?   Or if they choose to take their own lives what gales does that create in their families?  

Our stories need gales blowing through them.  Gales blow our characters out of their ordinary lives and into the special world of our stories.  Gales can be surges of emotion that motivate our characters to take action, to get even, or to "show them" that they really can succeed.  Gales blow change and force action on our characters. 

And after the storm has passed the land feels sparking clean, and readers can feel cleansed too if a gale has been successfully weathered in our story.