Field Trip: Part Deux

Ala Wai Harbor as seen from Ala Moana Beach Park, 0600-ish.

     Once more I found myself heading out in search of inspiration and information.  My target?  The Ala Wai Harbor.  I haven't been out here since my early teens when I was in a pilot for a Christian T.V. show.
     Yes.  Yes, you read that right.  Even had a line.
     Started from Ala Moana after getting off work.  Dipping into Ala Moana Beach Park, the above shot has the Waikiki Yacht Club in the foreground with the Prince Hotel in the background, left.  Immediately I noticed a small problem.  The boat I mentioned in the novel is a yacht.  These vessels in the foreground are yachts.
     Guess what?  They are nothing like I pictured.  I am not nautical in anyway, couldn't tell you stim from stern to save my life, and don't have the first clue about boat types.  So here I am just getting started and already found a hitch in my book.  But screw it, it's a small bump.  I'll just search for something that resembles what I was picturing, snap a couple shots, then look it up online.
     Leaving the park and crossing over the Ala Wai Canal, it's a quick hop to the hotel that the last two chapters I finished was located at.  The Prince Hotel.

     The first thing I noticed is a little something missing, namely the main entrance was not where I thought it to be.  In fact it was on the complete other side of the damn building.  Still not a problem.  A few sentence tweaks and I am back in business.  Circling round the side I'm now at the mouth of the harbor.  Something immediately begins to nag at me, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

     At the beginning its kind of boring.  About the only thing that stands out is the large amount of pollution in the water.  It's not exactly a secret that the Ala Wai is incredibly polluted and here where it connects to the ocean its pretty heavy.  Only other thing that stood out was this creepy thing.

Couldn't find anything for scale but it was the size of my friggin' head

     The water cleared up as I went along.  To my left (North) nothing but a restaurant, two more hotels and a long covered parking area that followed the harbor curving out toward the ocean (South).

     Turning back to face the way I had just come from I took this panoramic shot (Above) and the thing that had been nagging me suddenly became clear.  As you can clearly see the hotels are directly next to the harbor.  In the scenes I had just finished writing, the beach (Which is just to the left side of the above pic.) and an important element discovered by one of the main characters, is directly between the hotel and the harbor.  This was a huge freakin' problem as there is no way my character could possibly have found what I put there from his view point in the hotel.
     Unlike the errors I found in my description back in Chapter 1, this was no band-aid solution (Or plaster situation for any folks in the U.K.).  This was either going to be a transplant or an amputation.  When I passed the Prince, the placement of the entrance was not the only difference I noted.  Lack of balconies, the delivery area being no where like I thought, and the hotel itself looking nothing like I remembered.  In fact it appears that I got the Prince and the Ilikai Hotel (Where the beach was actually located.) confused.  Now I'm left with the decision of do I take creative license or do I adhere to reality?
     Once I decided to write a book I really started putting serious thought into what made certain stories elements work.  One thing I noticed is that if you ground something in reality you can then go as wild as you want and the audience will gladly grant you that suspension of disbelief.   George Lucas gave Star Wars (The originals.) a used feel, where before all depictions of the future was of a bright, shiny, mint-condition world.  The Millenium Falcon was held together by spit and duct tape giving it that grit of reality so when you see people using the Force or wielding a lightsaber no one even blinked.  In the Dresden Files, Jim Butcher gave Harry's magic a firm base in physics.
     You don't even have to stand up to your neck in reality, as long as your feet are in it you can get pretty fantastical.  I also have to take into consideration the proliferation of information on the internet.  Rearranging the geography of the area in DM could either be a detail no one notices or one that some person looks up and spots right off the bat.  And there is always the reality that I was way, way over-thinking things.
     On the phone with Tim at the time he threw out a suggestion that quieted my prolific use of pejoratives and worked quite well for rearranging Chapter 8.  At the time I was a bit miffed.
     Deciding not let that ruin my trip I continued on working my way slowly out to the end.  Though it is essentially a big parking lot for both cars and boats, the water cleared up beautifully and I passed a few interesting sights on the way.

Found a couple cool old cars.

An actual Junker.  Pretty shot too, total accident.

Made me think of 'Enter The Dragon'.

     Also found a couple possibilities that came real close to what I had mistakenly been picturing a yacht to be.

Of course I couldn't go the whole trip without putting my thumb in a damn shot *sigh*.

     I was told these were called 'Cabin Cruisers' (Above) and would be more than capable of doing what I needed in the story.
     What with the major errors in location, this trip was a bit more frustrating than the last and with less to look at.  It also ended up being much shorter since I didn't have to cover anywhere near as much ground.  Only real disappointment is that I was hoping to run into someone to stop and get info on the boats, but no such luck.  In fact there was hardly anyone out there at that time of the morning except surfers.  Got more than enough to move on in the book which, in the end, is all I really needed.
     As aggravating as having to go back and completely rearrange a chapter I was perfectly happy with was, it's good practice.  No book is perfect (Especially a first draft.) and if I get published my agent and editors will at times require me to do similar things and now I have a little experience in making those changes.  This time thanks to Tim's suggestion I was able to do a transplant instead of some Civil War style field amputation, next time I may have to do the literary equivalent of taking a chainsaw to an infected limb.  I'm even looking forward to my next field trip, wherever that may be.

Field Trip!

     Despite the fond memories of not being in school, in most cases a field trip will mean some form of inconvenience.  By field trip I mean the shocking notion of getting away from the keyboard and doing some form of outdoor research.  Yes it's scary, and there are people out there *shudders*, but on occasion it can be kinda cool.  I recently made my second such trip (Which I'll cover in another post.).  The previous trip I decided to take after writing the first three chapters.  They're set in the area I was working at the time ('Dead Moon' is set on the island of Oahu in Hawaii.  So far it all occurs in the Honolulu/Waikiki area.).
     I was pretty unhappy with the descriptions I had done of the area.  It just seemed like more of a backdrop/movie set than a living environment.  So armed with a camera I borrowed from my Aunt (Thanks, again Auntie.) I got off work at 0600 and walked the path my characters would be.

The parking garage where my protagonist encounters his first Zombie.

     I started at a parking garage.  You wouldn't think bringing something like a big-ass, hollow cinder block to 'Life' would be important, but I knew that if I couldn't animate something this simple, how would I pull it off with anything more complicated.  This shot (LEFT) I took during my shift the night before.  The scene itself takes place at night, so before I went for day-shots to get detail I caught this mainly for the feeling.  I actually deleted the clearer shots and kept this blurry one (With the tremor in my hands I'm lucky I got any clear shots.) because it gave me a better sense of the color in the scene.

     So far I've found that walking the locations in your book can really bring home, as well as make you aware of, small details that you would normally miss.  The way the garage smelled like salt water and exhaust, the way even the smallest sound echoed within and the landscaping muted the ones trying to get in.  And the elevators.

     The H-U-G-E frakkin' elevators.

     From there I headed North, my next stop the Neil S. Blaisdell Center.

The Blaisdell from afar.  Elvis' "Aloha from Hawaii" concert was held here.
I do bad things to it in my book.

     Had to do a bit of rearranging after getting a better grasp of the area around the hall.  Keeping details like this straight aren't necessary per se.  Nothing wrong with taking poetic license but it was an easy decision to "keep it real" in this case and it was mainly an issue of tweaking with little details and switching a few things around.  A band-aid problem.

     I actually found myself enjoying the trip itself despite my fatigue from working a graveyard shift and going for a nice walk in the hot sun.  For the first time I felt myself slipping into my characters minds with ease.  What they might be thinking, where they would go.  And things that won't even end up in the book (Though who really knows.) also helped pull me into the world.  The pics below for example:

Bronze (I think.) statue on the North end of the Blaisdell property.

Cemetery I found across the street from a hospital.

Same cemetery.  Full of Nuns, Priests, and Cardinals.

Statue of Father Damien in front of the Capitol building.

     A big reason I felt this trip necessary, and why I made sure to put work into describing a parking garage, was a big scene I had yet to write at St. Andrews Cathedral.

Cathedral Church Of St, Andrew, Honolulu (Side note, an opening scene in MST3K movie 'Codename: Diamond Head' was filmed here.)

   

Just looking at this place was a little intimidating in terms of 'how-the fuck-am-I going-to-describe-this' and 'why-do-I-know-nothing-about-architecture?'.    I wasn't able to get a picture of it (Because I didn't know it existed at the time.), but one of the figures in the stained glass around the entrance is Jesus with a surfboard.

     Cool as St. Andy's was, my favorite part of the trip had to be the final leg when I strolled Hotel St. which runs through the center of China Town.  There was some...  interesting signage to take in as well as a few pretty beautiful works of art.  The whole area is a bizarre mix of contrasts.  Post-Apocalyptic sections that would be at home in any Romero flick right across from spit-shined, well-kept grounds.

This statue of a sea turtle is to the left of the fountain (below-right).

Both the fountain...

... and this statue...

... are right next to this.

Don't know of it's still running, but the sign made me laugh my ass off.

Many of the buildings have been her for quite awhile.

If you can read this without laughing, you are mature and I weep for you.

    In the end I found myself at the beginning of my book.  This place (Below) has always caught my attention.  Even in China Town it stands out, and is one of those buildings that everyone knows and uses when giving directions.

Two of my main characters live in this corner piece.

As you can see they are plainly living the high life.

     While it kept me up past my bed time the trip paid back in spades (Whatever the hell that means.).  This one trip fueled my imagination from Chapter 1 up to Chapter 11, which I just finished.  It even helped with the locations I made up.  I get that it's not practical to do this with every location, but researching this beyond what I could find on the internet gave my descriptions a much needed kick in the ass.  Sometimes I get so focused on my world that I cut myself off from the one that actually exists, and I think its important for us (Writers.) to get out of our heads and experience the real thing.  I can't recommend doing this enough because the sights, sounds, and smells (Good and bad.) are the details that put your readers in the scene, and firmly sets them in your world.

My new editor

     When I started this whole thing my lack of continued education after High School was a big concern in terms of the quality of my book.  My grammar sucks dishwater and there was no way in hell I would even attempt to submit any work of mine to an agent that wasn't the best effort I could put forth.
     So I perused the internet looking into professional editing services.  My asshole tightened like a snare drum at what I was going to have to pay.  I think the cheapest I found was $400-500.  As someone who lives paycheck to paycheck, that's a lot if money.
     Mentioning this to my buddy Tim he generously offered to assist me.  And when I say generously, I mean it.  Dude has a wife, three kids, and more medical issues than Sam Jackson's character in 'Unbreakable'.  He rarely gets any time to himself and he was offering to use that time cleaning up my mess.  And while he is by no means an English teacher, his education on the subject far surpasses mine.  Not to mention the asshole's a million times smarter than I am.
     Sadly due to his medical issues he has had to step down.  Something about his brain not working right and not being able to read without intense pain and dizziness and blah, blah, blah.  He's such a wuss.
     Anyway that left me back at square one and being nearly halfway through DM I stressed a bit over it.  So I decided to work writing and editing into my regular routine.  This was a huge mistake that nearly brought my progress to a halt.
     Fortunately it turned out that I had a great resource right under my nose and her name is Brandi.  Originally I brought her into the project because I only had one female beta reader and wanted more feminine input.  Also when I had my minor panic attack about whether I could successfully write believable female characters she offered to educate my dumb-ass in the ways of women.
     Now I know all your secrets ladies!  Mua hahahahaha!  (Actually she's just filling me in on banal points that I should probably already know, but, hey, I'm an idiot.)
     Anyway, a couple of weeks back we were doing the feedback thing via Xbox Live, and I was lamenting my editorial deficit, when she informed me that she used to do copy editing and offered to do so for me.  Needless to say I jumped on the offer.
     It's been a great experience working with her so far.  She is skilled, knowledgeable and highly intelligent.  I had no clue about things like format preference for publishers or that things like the font even mattered.  Before now the only time I even used the font options was to type curse words in wingdings.
     Creatively it has been cool as well.  She has a good sense of where things should be added or moved, not to mention making suggestions that I wish I had thought of in the first place.
     Working with Brandi I feel like a real writer.  It also gives me experience for the future when I'll (Hopefully.) be working with an agent and publisher.
    I'm lucky to have her on my team, working with her has been fun and interesting and she's got be the coolest chick I've ever met.  If her husband didn't make me laugh so much I'd be plotting his imminent assassination.
     Looking forward to what she'll bring to the table.  My book will be better for it.
     And though he's no longer working on the project, any and all editorial mistakes should still be attributed to Tim.  I don't want him to feel left out.

Teaser Fallout

     First off I want to thank everyone who read DM's teaser, I appreciate you taking the time to do so.  I got close to two hundred views which was way more than I had thought I would.
     Sadly putting it up turned out to be an exercise in dealing with disappointment.  With nearly two hundred views I ended up with five +1's, three comments (Two of those from friends.), and a whopping one feedback comment.
     One.
     And he hated it.
     Getting back to that in a second, I want to make it clear that I am grateful for every view and +1 I got.  Not bitching about that.
     I tried very hard not to get my hopes up.  I was under no delusions that my teaser was going to become some internet sensation or that every review would be a glowing report singing its praises to the heavens.  But despite my best efforts I was hoping for more than one feedback comment out of nearly two hundred views.  I cannot even begin to describe the perfect storm of self-doubt that inundated me.
     Was it boring?
     Did I screw it up?
     Was it really that bad?
     Or worse was it so blase and banal that it wasn't worth even leaving a comment to tell me it sucked?
     As the view count kept rising and nothing else, it was a bit difficult to keep moving forward.  I owe a big thanks to my Alpha reader Richard for keeping me going with his enthusiasm for the project.  There were more than a few times when the only reason I didn't quit was him asking me if I had finished the chapter I was working on yet.
    As for the one feedback comment I got I am actually okay with it being negative.  Cool as it would be for everyone to love my book I know that just isn't going to happen.  And despite his dislike of what he read his comment was constructive.  He didn't just type 'It sucks.  You suck.  Never make words again.', he was honest but polite and didn't leave things at him not liking it but told me why.  What it was that didn't draw him in, and other points about the content that in several cases were things that I had noted already and agreed with him on.
     One of the points he made was that the story was not focused on the zombies as much, that they felt simply like an obstacles for the characters to overcome.  Also he looked for more of a horror aspect which he felt was lacking.
     The horror part stuck with me because I had to ask myself, what kind of writer am I?  While there will be horror moments in the story (It IS the Zombie Apocalypse after all.) I don't feel the need to shoehorn it in their.  While I respect the horror genre, I'm not a fan and never really have been.  For me any moment whether its comedic, sexy, or scary should be part of the story not put there just to be there.
     I'm not a horror writer, my interest is in the characters.  Shows like 'Firefly', 'Farscape', 'Supernatural' are my influences, especially Supernatural.  The horror/scary elements are there but what drives the show is the Winchesters.
     The focus of 'Dead Moon' isn't the zombies, it's the characters.
     So in the end it just means that my book will not be that persons cup of tea.  And while I am saddened to lose a potential reader I am thankful that he took the time to read it, comment honestly, and wasn't a raging cock-bite about it.  Also as I said I did agree with several points he made and have implemented those changes.
     I didn't get what I wanted out of the teaser but the work goes on and it was probably a good lesson for me to have driven home.  Things aren't going to go like I expect and that's okay.