Writing Red Ice: Day Two

Well, Day Two didn't go as well as Day One did, but I did complete the Prologue and I'm working through the first scene in Chapter One. Only managed to get a little over 600 words today, but it does introduce two of the novel's major supporting characters and goes a long way to setting up the first combat scene. Important progress.....

What took time today was finding the right locations for the first two chapters.While Google Maps can give me a lot of street-views, there are areas where there are NO street-level views and I have to stare hard (and use the zoom-in feature) to get a feel for the location so I can describe it in the novel.

So, why didn't I make up a location? I could, but I like using real places as much as possible. I do mix them up a bit -- For African Firestorm, there was a hotel where I had the team stay, but I didn't use the actual hotel's name, description, or floor plan in the novel. Instead, I replaced  it with another hotel. For a couple of the houses, I use real house descriptions, but the house I describe is actually the next street over, or up the street from that location.

But a few places you can't fake. Red Ice's prologue's takes place in a well-known San Francisco tourist spot. So I have to "block out the action that takes place so anyone who knows that area can imagine the action taking place instead of saying to themselves, "That's not right! There's no road there!" or, "There's no pier in that location!"

That's just the way I write.

That's all for tonight.

Done:  Prologue, 30% of Chapter 1
Words Written Today: 630
Total Word Count: 1,610 (2.47% of 65,000 words)

Later!

Craig