Frozen Resourcefulness: Five Snow Applications for Villains and Victims

In this episode, we explore the cunning and deceptive ways snow can be used by both antagonists and protagonists in your stories.

Join us as we uncover five clever snow uses:

1. Camouflage for People - Discover how snow can be utilized for effective concealment.
2. Camouflage for Traps - Learn how to disguise traps using snow for unexpected surprises.
3. Tracking Is Easier - Explore how snow can aid in tracking movements and uncovering secrets.
4. Making a Blockade - Understand how snow can be used to create barriers and obstacles.
5. Trail Markers*- Find out how snow can serve as a subtle yet effective way to mark paths and leave messages.

We'll also delve into our segment "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?" where we discuss various pitfalls and complications these uses can create in your story. Perfect for fiction writers aiming to add realism and tension to their narratives!

Keywords: fiction writing, snow uses, character development, writing tips, story ideas, fiction podcast, writing podcast, villain tactics, survival tips, writing realism

Transcript

What warfare tactics can your character use on a smaller scale in the winter? What is a bad way to cover snow tracks? How can caches help? What is the equivalent of a snow foxhole? Learn about all of this and more in today’s episode. 

Welcome to Writing Rural with Alley, the fiction writer’s weekly inspiration station for rural life and lifestyles, from historical to post-apocalyptic, helping you bring your rural stories to life! I’m Alley, and this is episode #92, 5 Snow Uses For Villains & Victims. Stick around to the end to find out all the ways things could possibly go wrong. Now, let’s get into this.

1) Camouflage for people

Most people know how easy it is to pick out something of a different color on an all white background of snow. But what if I told you, snow, can, and is, used as a way to camouflage people? It’s true. Humans have learned to blend into their surroundings for thousands of years, and snow is something we have used. 

The most often thought of thing is snow camouflage clothing. This is something that has been used by both hunters, and military’s in most of history, in places with regular snow accumulation. As you can guess, most of these have white, but they also normally have some black or brown lines, or specks. While snow is white, most places have branches they try to blend in with. However, my favorite meme of this is the guys that used a flea market wedding dress as camouflage to go hunting. White gloves and all! 

Now, this can be used by bad guys hunting your protagonist. It could also be used to hide victims from their pursuer. Whether it is for crossing a frozen river on Christmas Eve to attack the red coat (that was a Revolutionary War reference for those who were not sure), or if your red coats don’t want to be bright targets in the snowy forest, winter camouflage will be their friend. 

Other modern ones that use this are wildlife observers, as they try to blend in. I mean, no one wants eaten by a polar bear, or pecked by a penguin. At least I don’t. Then there are ski patrols. They want to catch people doing what they aren’t supposed to in the act. Sometimes even rescue teams at a ski resort use camouflage when they are trying not to scare people. If there is a group of kids learning to ski, they might be traumatized to see a bunch of grownups taken off a mountain after an avalanche. 

2) Camouflage for traps

Snow has been used as a way to hide traps for trappers since caveman times when they were making deadfalls. Your bad guys can also use snow to cover traps they have. A trip line set up as the snow starts to fall will not be seen, as it becomes baried in the snow. Most people will not look to see if something is different or wrong if the snow does not look to be disturbed. Usually only warriors, paranoid people, or someone who grew up with one of these people will think to look for more. 

Depending on what kind of animals move through the area, sometimes people will take animal paths hopeing to blend their prints with the animal’s prints. This is easier if the snow is a little deeper and the animal is larger, like a bear. 

But don’t forget, just as the bad guys can use snow, so can the good guys. On top of everything already mentioned, they could use deep snow drifts to hide their movements on the other side, to make sure they are set up to shoot at them on the other side, or even use a snow cave (that we talked about last week) like a fox trap. When they walk past it, the person pops out of the snow. This holds as much potential as your imagination can think of. 

3) Tracking is easier 

Anyone who has ever been in or around snow knows that you leave footprints when you walk through it. If you have only seen this in books, or on tv, they are not joking. 90% of snow types will have a trail left in them. The only ones that do not are when they are frozen solid like ice. These have usually melted slightly in the sunlight, and then the water froze in the night. 

This makes following tracks very easy a lot of the time. Even if it snows, it would have to snow at least six inches to cover foot prints without leaving what looked like concaves in the rough size and pattern of foot prints. 

This, however, can be used by good guys and bad guys. Bad guys to follow, and good guys to give them the slip. This can be done a few ways. First, would be to find a way to cover the tracks. This is easier said than done, but high-traffic areas would be a great place to camouflage foot prints with other foot prints. 

Second would be to make false leads. This is done, by walking backward in the tracks that were already made and then jumping over a bush where they didn’t see the new prints, or perhaps onto a bolder that had no snow, because the sun had heated the bolder faster than the ground. However, this one comes with some down sides. Backtracking takes time. This time could be life or death, depending on the situation. Also, if a person doesn’t have a lot of practice walking backward, they could cause a slight doubling of their tracks. This would be plain to see and the bad guys could catch on right away. 

However if they were to come across the bad guys tracks as they were tracking them, there is a chance they could walk along the tracks, and find a way to split off that hopefully the bad guys would not see, or would take a long time to come across, giving them a head start on the bad guys. 

4) Making a blockade

Blockades have been an effective battle tactic since wars started. These can be huge things that stop people from crossing where they are not supposed to go. Examples include things like the Great Wall of China, and more commonly thought of is a bottleneck. A bottleneck is where all the soldiers have to go through one small area because of large obstacles, such as borders or mountains. This is used in battle to be able to make a rock slide, or other collapse of the small path. 

These same tactics can be applied to snow. And even on a smaller scale. If the only safe way to get somewhere quickly is through a small pathway, an avalanche of snow will close that up quickly. If there is more time, or they know snow is coming, larger objects could be placed in the path, and left to be snowed on. In order to remove them from the path, they would have to dig down to them. That takes time, and in most cases, buying time is what a character needs. Whether it is time to get to safety, get help, or just to get a better set up to fight back. 

However, this could come in handy for protection from predators in the wilderness, too. An avalanche in a narrow pathway to stop a charging bear is an option. Just make it a realistic one. Unless you are the Ice Age squirrel. Then you can do whatever you want. 

5) Markers 

Snow has been used as a marker in many ways, and will likely still be used as a marker long after an apocalypse. There are many things it can mark for both your good characters and your villains. Just remember, more than one person has to know what the marker means, or it is not useful. 

It can be a trail marker. This can be to show where a path is, what path was taken, which one is safe, which one is dangerous, which is short, and which way is the long way, along with many more things. 

Direction indicators such as arrows or preassigned means are very common. This can be to show where to go, where not to go, distance, and more. This can also be used to indicate where a camp site is, or where to meet up with others. Whether it’s with other bad guys or a rescue group is up to you. 

Don’t forget, snow melts, and there is always a chance the markers melted and are gone, or they look nothing like the marker was intended to look. 

This is also something common for marking cache locations. A cache is a place where food or supplies are stored. This would be very common in post apocalyptic stories. It’s something I have heard of people doing in hostile areas of the world. I have heard stories of North Korean Christians and even other religions hiding Bible pages in the forest for fear of being caught with it in their home. Weapons would be common in war stories, or post apocalyptic. 

Remember, survival, especially in extreme conditions, tends to follow the military motto of improvise, adapt, and overcome. Rarely are two situations the same, and many times they could be handled many different ways. So get creative, and save your characters, or let the villain win, whatever your story calls for. 

Fun fact: Some animals, such as the Arctic fox, change color to blend in with snow in the winter. 

One quick remind before we get to the best part:

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Now, for everyone’s favorite part, what could possibly go wrong? 

Likely to go wrong: Your character uses a bottleneck to get their enemy right where they want them, when they trigger an avalanche. Not only does it bury the other person, but it buries your character too. Avalanches are not always as predictable as our characters hope. 

Likely to go wrong: Your character thinks they can erase their tracks like a cartoon with a branch. However, this just disturbs a large area of snow in an unnatural way and leaves a clear trail of its own. 

Possible to go wrong: Your character is in snow camouflage and hunting. The camouflage is all white, and the animals spots them, causing them to run. While snow is white, it is often broken, but tree branches, rocks, and other things. 

Possible to go wrong: Your character follows a marker down a trail they think will lead them out of the area quickly. However, they misunderstood what the marker means and they are soon lost. 

Unlikely to go wrong: Your character is walking in the forest, and gets caught in a snare meant for a wild animal because it was baried in the snow. 

Unlikely to go wrong: Your character steps on a leg hole trap that is hidden in the snow, and it snaps closed on their ankle, breaking it. 

Improbable but still technically in the realm of possibilities: Your character comes across the tracks of someone tracking them, and follows the tracks for a bit, before hopping over a bush to hide their tracks leading away. The people tracking them go in circles until they get tired and give up. 

Improbable but still technically in the realm of possibilities: After the apocalypse, your character moves a bunch of cars to the bottom of a mountain pathway, and when winter hits they are buried in snow. Other characters know there are likely supplies up the mountain and try to go up it. They will either have to dig out and move all the cars, find another way, or move on. 

Thanks for listening! Until next time, happy wordsmithing.