Writer’s Tip #76: Use a Photo to Develop Characters, Setting

When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know you’ve done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer’s tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.

This tip was brought to mind by one of my readers. My current WIP is so far from its beginnings that I’d forgotten it started with photos to draw character profiles and Google Earth images to create the setting details. But it did. I remember browsing through internet images of paleoanthropologists, staring in their eyes to see if they were Kali or Zeke (my two main characters). Did they have her fragile spirit or his swash-buckling former SEAL-gone-scientist persona? Once I found the right image, I read everything I could find about that sort of person and came up with a character that worked. Then, I pasted the pictures to the walls of my office so every time they were in scene, I’d see them, notice how they moved, remember how their head tilted in thought or their brows furrowed in confusion.

Settings were the same. To make them authentic, I searched out locations on Google Earth, then traveled the streets, the towns, the neighborhoods to get a sense of what my characters would experience. If Kali or Zeke walked from Columbia University to her apartment a couple of blocks away, I walked it first to see what bodega they passed, how busy were the streets, what type of people visited local businesses. This way, I could add flavor, emotion to my story. A few times, I had to adjust the scene because Google Street View told me it couldn’t have happened the way I’d written. Anyone with a wide audience knows they tell you all your mistakes, so the less that slip through, the better.

So this tip is a big one. Don’t think you can skip visualizing characters and settings. Take the time to find out about your story’s fundamentals and then let your people and locations drive the story.

I’m not the only one who uses Google Earth as a writing tool. Click here to see a unique way one reader incorporated Google Earth (using a GPS logger–amazing). Here’s one Duke professor’s writing course that uses Google Earth.

More on Google Earth and writing:

Tech Tip for Writers #65: Google Street View

How to Virtually Visit a Location You Can’t Drop In On

Writer’s Tip #47: Authenticate Setting

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Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is the author/editor of dozens of books on integrating tech into education, webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com and TeachHUB, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. 

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