A Plug for Google Earth

I was sitting here trying to think of what to blog about next. As a person who never has to worry about what to SAY next, this blogging three times a week is getting frustrating. It's like I've run out of things to say. So I figured I'd skip the blog post this week (again) and do something constructive, like work on my novel. As I was digging through my pile of papers to find the one sheet I needed, I came across the maps I drew of my character's neighborhoods. That's when I came up with this blog post: a plug for Google Earth.

I've used it on my last three novels. The first and second were set in Seattle, about a 1.5 hour drive from where I live. I had a paper map of Seattle, and I had a statistical map (my husband provided it for me) of the socio-economic status in Seattle (poorest parts in one color, middle-class in another color, richest areas in... you get it). So I knew the general area where I wanted my protagonist cop to live, where my antagonist would live, where my run-away teen would live. But seeing it on a paper map just isn't enough. So I conned a friend into driving me up to Seattle and we cruised through those areas I'd marked as important to my story. I took a ton of photos, chose which houses/apartments my characters would live in, and got a general feel for the neighborhoods. Excellent stuff.

But I could only drive to Seattle once (it's stressful, believe me!), and I didn't learn absolutely everything I needed for the story. Enter Google Earth. It's fantastic! I find the area of the city I want to explore, then zoom around like a bird to see the big picture of the surrounding neighborhoods, how far it is from famous landmarks or waterways, locate nearby parks, restaurants, and coffee shops, etc. Then I can zoom in and get a street view as if I were really there. If I stand on this particular street corner, I can turn and see all that can be seen--and what CAN'T be seen--and do a full 360. It's not as excellent as being there, but it's a really close second.

My newest novel is set in my hometown, which I know well. Yet I still use Google Earth to look around neighborhoods I've never driven through before, chart distances from a house to the hospital or from a house to downtown so I can estimate drive time, and see entire neighborhoods in one big overhead shot. It's great for finding good hiding places (for bad guys), back roads for escape routes, and finding nearby conveniences likes groceries and coffee. 

The downside to Google Earth is you're never certain if the views are up-to-date, but I figure it doesn't matter all that much. Readers may complain about inconsistencies (that massive tree was cut down in 2011, or that building burned to the ground in 2013), but as artists we're allowed the old "artistic license" thing. In one of my novels, I used this exact scenario to my advantage: a house that used to sit on 6th Avenue in Lacey is no longer there, but using Google Earth, I went back in time to find out when it came down. Then I set my story six months before the house was bulldozed and put the house's destruction into the story. Did you know that you can go back in time with Google Earth? There's a little clock icon with a back arrow attached. Click that, and you get a slider that let's you go back to previous pictures taken of that same area. There are limits to this (the photos don't go back very far), but it can be useful to know what the neighborhood looked like last year, or two years ago, or five years ago (if they have photos from that far back).

If you've never tried using Google Earth, give it a shot. You might find it one of the most useful tools in your writer's tool box. If you have used it, share your experience in the comment section below. I love hearing from you.

-Sonja

One-Sentence Summary of your Book

When someone asks you what your book is about, do you have a one-sentence line to spit out, or do you ramble on for four minutes rehashing the plot before your listener bolts? If you do the four-minute-ramble, I've got a great tool for you. Unfortunately, I can't remember where I got it. It's scrawled on a chunk of paper that floats on my desk, moving from pile to pile as I shift papers looking for whatever it is I'm looking for. Shoot. So I can't give the original author the applause and recognition he/she deserves. (Note: If you know who came up with this, please share! I hate not knowing. I think it might be Kristen Lamb, but I'm not sure.)

It's a simple formula. Ready?

Protagonist must do X (goal) in order to stop Antagonist before Super Bad Thing Happens (ticking clock).

It's that easy. Watch me put it to work. Here's the one-sentence summary of my romantic suspense Cassandra's Curse:  Cassandra must discover the killer's identity and stop him before he shoots Detective Dogan. I'll admit, it's not the best one-sentence summary I could have come up with, but it does the job. 

Let me try it again with someone else's work: Frodo must destroy The One Ring in the fires of Mt. Doom in order to stop Sauron before he takes over the world with his evil hordes.

Here's another, but I had to alter the formula slightly to get it to work: Katniss Everdeen volunteers to fight in the Hunger Games to save her younger sister from dying in the games. 

Now consider your work-in-progress and fill in the blanks. Share your one-sentence summary in the comments section, please.

-Sonja

Meaningful Reference Library

On her January 6 blog, Kristen Lamb posted The Writer's Guide to a Meaningful Reference Library. It's a list of awesome books on the craft of writing, including everything from structure and plot to building believable characters to social media. I own many of the books on the list she offers, and I agree that they are essential to any writer's resource library. Head over and check out the list. Pay special attention to The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. I just bought this book a couple months back and I use it constantly.

Are there any books in your reference library that aren't on Kristen's list? I have Character Naming Sourcebook by Sherrilyn Kenyon that I frequently use, and Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey (it's about personalities, and I use it for character creation). I have quite a few others that aren't on Kristen's list, but I'd like to see what's in your reference library that you rely on. Please share.

-Sonja

Dueling Desires

The February 2014 Writer's Digest arrived at my house last week, and I found a helpful article I'd like to share with ya'll. I can't share all of it (that would be unethical), so check it out from your local library or subscribe online if you need the entire thing. It's called Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Steven James. The blurb beneath the headline reads, "Readers can't resist turning pages when characters are facing tough choices. Use these 5 keys to weave moral dilemmas into your stories--and watch your fiction climb to new heights." I'd like to share his first key/point with you today and offer a bit of discussion. The first key is: Give your character dueling desires.

Here's  a quote: "Before our characters can face difficult moral decisions, we need to give them beliefs that matter: the assassin has his own moral code not to harm women or children, the missionary would rather die than renounce his faith, the father would sacrifice everything to pay the ransom to save his daughter." A sallow character isn't any fun to read. Nor is one who has no backbone, no convictions, no beliefs worth fighting (or dying) for. So your first step is to give your character a set of beliefs. Then take it an extra step to make it more interesting: "Give her two equally strong convictions that can be placed in opposition to each other."

He uses the example of a woman who wants peace in her home and openness between her and her husband. If she suspects her husband is cheating on her, she must sacrifice one of those principles: she either confronts him in openness and destroys the peace, or she keeps the peace by keeping it to herself and ruins the openness between them. Another example James offered is the protagonist who believes cultures should be allowed to define their own subjective moralities, and that women should be treated as equals with men. Now plunk her down in a society that doesn't give women respect or equality. What will she do? Allow that culture to continue in its morality that women are inferior, or try to change those standards so that women are treated more equally?

(photo of Frodo courtesy of wikipedia)

My family just watched the first Hobbit movie, went to the theater for the second Hobbit movie, then watched all three Lord of the Rings movies (took a couple days to do all that). Aside from the awesome cinematography and musical score, those movies featured amazing character and story. Frodo Baggins clearly had conflicting moral convictions. He truly believed that good should stand up to evil. He also truly believed that Hobbits should live quiet, peaceful lives in their Shire homeland. When an adventure is thrust upon him, he must choose: stand and fight, or stay home and hope someone else would stand up and fight. He faced similar challenges throughout his adventure. 1) Use the ring to bring about something good, or defeat the urge to wear the ring so his soul didn't become further corrupted. 2) Trust others to help him, or face his challenge alone. 3) Toss the ring into the fires of Mt. Doom and destroy it (thus destroying evil and its minions), or try to use the ring to defeat evil and its minions. What made Frodo such a compelling character was that we thought we knew what he would do when faced with these choices, but we weren't absolutely certain. He kept us guessing until the very end. In many places, it looked like even HE didn't know what he wanted to do.

Compelling characters ensure the reader will turn pages instead of reaching for the TV remote. Give your character the extra dilemma of conflicting morals and you'll enthrall your readers.

I offered Lord of the Rings as an example. Can you think of others? Share your ideas in the comments below, please.

-Sonja

Obsession

Have you heard of the game Clash of Clans? I have it on my iPad. My son convinced me I'd like it, then he downloaded it onto my device and showed me how to make a few moves.

(photo of barbarian courtesy of wikipedia)

Within minutes, I was addicted. Seriously addicted. I only have two builders, and I refuse to spend real money to buy more gems, so I can't get a third builder. Not so big a deal, when the little stuff only takes 15 minutes to create a new mine or an elixir collector. But then I started upgrading stuff. A level 6 archer tower takes 24 hours to upgrade to level 7. A level 6 town hall takes 6 days! And it takes 1.2 million gold to make that upgrade. Do you know how long it takes to save up 1.2 million in gold when you don't have a shield and other players raid while I'm sleeping and even if I were awake I couldn't do anything about it because the game shuts you out when raiders are stealing all your hard earned gold and elixir... *face plant to desk* Yes, I am ashamed to admit, I've gotten up at 2 am to set a builder to a new task, or collect gold and elixir from the storage containers, thus making it a little bit harder for raiders to get to it. Seriously, people, I am obsessed with this game.

What does it have to do with writing, you ask? Obsessions, addictions, and fixations make gloriously interesting characters. Do you have a protagonist who's capable of the job but is kind of boring? Give him an obsession! He must collect car parts from a 1963 Chevy Corvair. I'm not talking about when he sees a junk yard he must stop in and see what's there. I'm talking about spending his grocery money on windshield wipers and gas caps. I'm talking about spending every single weekend visiting swap meets and junk yards and vintage car shows in search of the smallest stuff, like hoses, gaskets, and hub cap bolts. Are there bolts on a hub cap? I don't know, but your obsessed protagonist sure will. The beauty of an obsession is that it is yet another conflict to be conquered before reaching The Goal. How can your hero save the world if he's devoted to grease-monkeying in all his free time?

If you decide to give your hero an obsession or addiction, PLEASE avoid the cliches: alcohol, gambling, prostitutes, that sort of stuff. If you must use one of these, make it fresh and interesting. Maybe your hero isn't out soliciting prostitutes for sex. Maybe he's trying to save them from the streets. But even that can be cliche. Maybe these young girls remind him of his daughter, who died on the streets at the hands of a john. Now we're getting closer, but it's still be done to death on Law and Order: SVU and CSI. Maybe he believes that the only way to get to Heaven is to save as many people as possible from the streets before his death, which is eminent because he's got brain cancer and only has three months to live. Okay, I'll admit I'm getting silly now, but you get the idea. 

Most of us have simple addictions or obsessions--or maybe those words are too strong for what we experience. We enjoy our hobbies. We don't break our budgets on these things, we don't neglect other important duties for these things, we don't fixate. We have a healthy balance in life. Identify yours. Mine include reading (if your read my last post of 2013, you probably noticed that I read 120 novels last year. That doesn't include the non-fiction I read. But I read fast, and I don't let it keep me from the laundry or homeschooling or cooking dinner that I must do every day. I do manage to lose some sleep over this one, but it's not like I'm staying up until 3 am reading...), writing, and playing computer games (Civilization is another addiction of mine). I spend the bulk of my free time doing these things.

Now take it one step beyond. How can you turn this love of (fill in the blank) into an obsession? Simply make that hobby into your character's main joy in life, to the exclusion of all else. A good obsession will throw the rest of life out of balance. It'll soak up the savings account, the grocery budget, and the kids' allowance. It'll intrude upon family time. It may even intrude on work time, and what supervisor will allow an employee to take off for lunch and not come back? Maybe your hero's obsession isn't with a hobby. Maybe it's with an ideal: justice, freedom, the eradication of socialism. 

Play around with the idea and see what you can come up with. Better yet, brainstorm in the comments section below. What kind of obsessions can you come up with? Can you think of any obsessions that would be better for an antagonist than a protagonist? Can you come up with one that would be nearly impossible for the protagonist to deal with while he's trying to reach The Goal? Have fun with this exercise and share what you come up with.

-Sonja

Contest Winner

I ran a contest last Wednesday for a free $10 Starbuck's gift card. Minion #1chose Aggeloi! Congratulations! I'll contact you via email shortly. Thanks for participating!

-Sonja

Top Ten Posts for 2013 (and a Contest)

2013 was a great year for me, blog-wise. I increased my weekly number of posts. My readership increased. I switched to WordPress and figured out how to use the stats. The stats really get me going--I LOVE to check out how many hits I had on my last post and try to figure out how to get MORE hits on my next post. It's an OCD thing.

The most useful tool in my stats toolbox is the Top Posts. I can scan for the week, the month, or the year. For kicks, I asked for the Top Posts of 2013. Boy, was I surprised to see what ya'll loved about my blog! Wanna see? Here are the Top Ten Posts from my blog for 2013 (excluding the Home Page).

1. Sadistic Personality Disorder

2. Narcissistic Personality Disorder

3. Histrionic Personality Disorder

4. Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder

5. Signature vs. Modus Operandi

6. Writers and INFJ's

7. FBI Profile -- Disorganized Criminals

8. Behavior Reflects Personality

9. Schizoid Personality Disorder

10.Building Characters -- Psychological and Moral Need

I'm going out on a limb here: I'm guessing you folks are interested in creating believable bad guys for your novels. Either that, or you're hoping to diagnose your sister, or step-father, or your strange Uncle Harvey. By the number of hits these pages get, I think I'll devote more time in 2014 to discussing bad guys and how they tick.

The other nice feature I found in the stats folder was a summary of comments: who commented the most, how many comments I received on each post, and how often a single commenter posted something. I'll admit, those numbers aren't where I want them to be. Ya'll just aren't sharing your thoughts and feelings with me very often.

So, in a shameless act of self-promotion, I'm going to give away something (for FREE) to one random commenter on this post. Are you paying attention now? Put down the sandwich and prepare your witty comment. IF I chose you, I'll send you a FREE... *drumroll please...* Starbucks Gift Card worth ten bucks. That's close to two free drinks! How can you pass that up? You know you want it. All you have to do for a chance to get that Starbucks Gift Card is to comment on this post. On Friday, January 3, I will choose one commenter at random. (I'll probably conscript one of my minions to make the pick, just to make it totally fair.) If you win, I'll contact you for your mailing address (and I promise I won't stick that address on my mailing list or sell it to someone who desperately wants it). The odds are in your favor, so comment now! 

Yeah, I really just want to hear from you. It's a bit lonely in the basement right now...

-Sonja