Interview with Rob Long and Andrew Dolberg, Authors of The Great Weather Diviner

The Great Weather Diviner has such a fantastic premise. Please tell us more about it: 

 

RL: Thank you! As a Punxsutawney native, I was always captivated by the local Groundhog Day traditions and legends. It reminded me of so many other mythologies surrounding weather. The concept of weather prediction becoming unpredictable due to climate disruption just occurred to me as a way to reintroduce this story to a new generation. I always wanted to tell a story that reflected the sense of distress and betrayal that young people feel over the climate crisis, but on their terms.

Rob, I love your acknowledgement, describing your feelings about showing the initial draft to someone else (handing over a scarf knitted in your own hair). It really can be so hard to show your work to someone. Why was Andrew your first choice? 

 

RL: It really was daunting to share my writing. It really takes a lot of nerve to just decide you can write and assume that it's comprehensible, let alone enjoyable for someone else to read. I started the whole project as sort of a therapeutic creative outlet during Covid, not really knowing where it would go. It's such a unique concept that I knew only a very few people would get it.  Andrew and I had spent many hours over the years debating movies, shows, books, and comics. I knew that he was creative and had a nuanced understanding of narrative structure, but most importantly I knew that he'd actually read what I sent him. I'm still so thankful that he saw the potential in this story or it never would've become a novel. 

Andrew, what was your very first reaction to Rob’s pages? 

 

AD: I was blown away when Rob shared the original short story with me. It brought me back to memories from my elementary and middle school days when we would watch the whole Groundhog Day ceremony. That nostalgia was powerful, but I was also impressed that this was a truly new concept, not something that recycled the same storytelling troupes. I also loved the idea of using a fantasy epic to talk about climate change in a way that was accessible for children, and that became the basis for how we grew the story and developed the themes. 

I’m always so intrigued by writing partnerships. Mostly, because writing is such a truly solitary endeavor, most of the time. What was your process like?

 

The most important part of our writing process wasn't actually the writing, it was the countless hours of discussions we had before we ever put pen to paper. We got together multiple times a week and talked about the characters, setting, history, politics, and more about the fantasy continent of Erda because we wanted it to feel like a complete world. By the time we started writing, the story just flowed. We learned each other's strong suits pretty quickly and fell into a natural rhythm. One of us would write a chapter then the other would edit and we alternated roles depending on who felt they could nail that section of the story. Looking at it now, we developed a unique shared voice that's different from our independent writing styles.

The book also addresses climate change and extinctions / biodiversity. At what point did that enter into the story?

 

That theme was clear from the very first iteration. We believe that the climate crisis is the story of our time. We both feel that this book wasn't worth writing if it didn't have an important message. On its face, this novel is a heartfelt coming of age story that reinvents a quaint piece of American folklore, but deep down it's meant to connect young people with critical environmental issues in a way that's not preaching to them, but instead relates to how they feel about it. 

What were the biggest changes in the storyline from the first draft to the final version?

 

Well if we're talking about the original short story, the changes are drastic. It was about a third of the length, and was missing most of the key plot points that we eventually developed and even one of the three main characters featured on the cover. One of the most important additions was the whole storyline that happens in Punxsutawney while Junior is on his big adventure. We don't want to give too much away, but the first iteration was just a shadow (pun intended) what we eventually drafted. From the first draft of the full book to the final version, there are actually very few major changes. Before writing the third act, we did a retreat where we cleaned up the plot a bit and developed a detailed outline for how the story would conclude. That's probably the point at which we made the most changes to the first draft of the chapters, and we added some mystery elements throughout the story and planted seeds for some big reveals. Once the third act was written, we didn't make any further changes to the plot. We added details here and there, but we had a very clean draft that just needed some line edits.

The Great Weather Diviner contains some incredible worldbuilding. What was that process like? In so many ways, you had a complete blank slate, and the world you created was your own. Did you find that freeing? Or was the blank slate daunting?

 

The worldbuilding was one of the most fun aspects to developing this story. We've always been fans of major fantasy epics like the Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, Eragon, Game of Thrones, etc. and we were excited to start from scratch in designing a place that felt similar to those worlds. We realized early that we had to decide how much of our world paralleled the real world. The obvious deviation from reality is there are no humans, only anthropomorphized animals, but Punxsutawney is a real town. We had to figure out what other places and landmarks would at least share the name of real things - even if they were fictionalized versions. The real challenge was figuring out how much of this world we could reveal to the reader without overwhelming them or taking away from the plot. We found ourselves paring back a lot of background information to let the characters breathe. We know so much more about Erda than the readers because of our discussions to fully develop the world before writing. The good thing is, even the concepts that got cut still exist in our world and can appear in later books in the series. There's a lot more of Erda to cover!

What was the editorial process like? Did the two of you ever disagree about a plot point or an editorial choice? How did you navigate it?

 

Honestly, we didn't have big disagreements on anything major. There were of course some ideas that one of us loved and the other didn't, but we realized that this was a collaboration and we were pretty good at compromising. We also got very good at explaining *why* something was so important to us. So if one of us felt strongly about a scene progressing in a certain way, we would talk about how that would develop some other plot point later in the story. We have been friends long enough that our rapport allows us to address issues very effectively, but frankly we're on the same page 90% of the time. 

What’s next?

 

We have a spinoff children's picture book meant for the Easy Reader (4-8) age range called Hugo: The Last Flamingo that's currently being illustrated by our wonderful cover artist, Madison Brake. We're really excited about it, as it will be more Florida-centric (where we both live) and cover a lot about the Everglades. We're hoping to get that published next year. Besides that, we're busy outlining the sequel to The Great Weather Diviner.

Where can we find you?

 

You can preorder The Great Weather Diviner at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and a growing list of independent bookstores. You can connect with us on Facebook and Instagram @GroundhogBook and Andrew has a new TikTok @AndrewDolberg. You can also visit our website at www.GreatWeatherDiviner.com for more details about the book, announcements, and some absolutely beautiful merch.