A to Z - Map Making

Map from The Way of Kings

This is a post about a class I attended at LTUE that was taught by Isaac Stewart, who did the one above for Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings. Isaac reviewed a number of things that the writer/mapmaker would want to consider relating to geography, such as where and what kinds of mountains would have been formed (which makes a difference as to where your deserts are) and the locations of rivers and bodies of water. Communities tend to grow up where there are sources of water, building materials, arable land, and trade routes.

In my SciFi trilogy, I'm going to have to have maps for two continents, and I'd wondered how I was going to come up with a map. Isaac showed a number of photos of random objects that ended up being perfect for map coastline ideas.

Examples:

• chipped paint on a chair
• splattered water stain on concrete
• the blobby stuff on the lid of a guacamole tub when you first open it
• a messy pile of wet leaves after a storm
• stains on a ceiling.

Brilliant, I say!

But you know what else he said? It can take a HUGE amount of time to create a map. If you're the author, quit working on the map and write the dang book!

Have you ever had to create a map for a book?

Tag!

Source

I thought I was better at ducking, but perhaps this cold has slowed me down--it can't be my advanced years!

Anyway, Eve Gaal over at The Desert Rocks got me.

The Tag rules:
1. You must post the rules!
2. Answer the questions and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged.
3. Tag eleven seven (because it's a magical number) people and link to them.
4. Let them know you’ve tagged them.

Eve's Questions - My Answers
1.    Have you written a book?

Yes. I've got two completed books and two partials. One of the completed manuscripts I'm currently querying, and the other (that needs to be edited still) replaced one of the partials when it morphed from MG to YA. The other partial really needs to be told in more than one book, and I'll be outlining it as a trilogy later this year. 

2.    Were you a participant in the famous Underwear Challenge of 2010? 

No. But I did get sucked into it in 2011.

3.    What is your favorite children’s book?

Charlotte's Web 

4.    Tell us about the last time you went to the library. Alone or with someone else?

Last week, when I met some friends there. I work for my city and the library is attached to my building. I LOVE my library. 

5.    Do you prefer the internet for research?

I love doing research using the Internet. I let my fingers do the walking. 

6.    What’s your favorite flower?

I love the smell of carnations. 

7.    Do have a distaste for used cook books?

No, I just don't use them much anymore. 

8.    Have you ever used a book to repair a bed or to hold up the leg of a table? 

Nope. I have a very handy hubby. 

9.    If you could enter a certain scene in a book, which one would it be?

It would so be when Kaladin saves Dalinar in The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. Those two men ROCK! 

10. What book is on your nightstand now?

Become by Ali Cross. 

11. Do you read to your pet?

Nope. My little doggy died last summer, but I didn't read to her anyway. Now, ask me about reading to my grandkids . . .

Okay, here are my questions:

1. If Abe Lincoln and George Washington got into a fight who’d win--and why?
2. What was your favorite book in 2011?
3. If you had a magical snail that could grant wishes, what would you ask for?
4. What would your last meal be if you were on death row?
5. Who is your favorite, Bill or Ted?  Why?
6. What will your weapon of choice be for the coming zombie apocalypse? Why?
7. Who is your favorite literary stalker?
8. If people were thrown in jail for bad habits, what would you be thrown in jail for?
9. What is the most distant place you've visited or lived?
10. If a spaceship were to land outside your house right now, would you get in it? If yes, where would you ask it to take you--and it could be anywhere you wanted to go.
11. Who is your favorite author?

And these are the poor suckers lucky people who get to answer them--go visit the blogs and check our their answers--though they may answer this at a time that best fits their schedules:

Laura Josephsen
Robin Weeks
Suzie F.
Far Away Eyes
Nancy Thompson
JeffO
Shelly Brown

Audiobook Giveaway

You might not have noticed, but I talk a lot about listening to books. I got into audiobooks when I was making a long commute via bus. I talked a little about it in my blog post here back in January of this year. Even though my commute is now five minutes, I still love listening to audiobooks.

Why?

Because anymore I have very little time to actually sit down and "read" a book. But I can listen to an audiobook anywhere! Well, not at church, though I'll freely admit there are times I'm sorely tempted during those late city council meetings.

Audiobooks are great when doing yard work, laundry, housework, grocery shopping--even while doing mindless projects at my day job. And long trips? Fabulous!

So, what's my point?

Earlier this week I posted a book review here for Brandon Sanderson's new book Mistborn: The Alloy of Law. I forgot to mention that I didn't read the paper book. I listened to the audiobook.

And it was freaktastic!

Michael Kramer, who reads all the books in Brandon Sanderson's The Mistborn series and The Way of Kings is well known to me. He and his wife, Kate Reading, are the narrators for the Wheel of Time series. I love their performances. I was thrilled when I downloaded the audiobook for The Host by Stephenie Meyer (which I liked more than the Twilight series) and found out that Kate was the narrator.

I know. I use the word "love" a lot. I think Michael is one of the best readers out there.

In association with the gracious people at  Macmillan Audio, I'm doing an audiobook giveaway--just in time for Christmas! If you've been wondering if you'd like audiobooks, here's your chance to try one out. It would also make a great gift.

It's simple and painless to have your name thrown into the contest mix:

1. Be a follower of my blog
2. Add a comment to this post, telling me you want your name entered and include your email address.

At 7 p.m. MST on December 21st I'll let random.org select a winner. I will forward your information to Macmillan Audio, and you will have the choice between a downloaded file or CDs (obviously you won't get the CDs in time for Christmas).

Following is a snippet from The Alloy of Law to give you a taste.

#PoetrySummer and Books, Books, and More Books

Week 8: #PoetrySummer

(This is from Dan Well's Summer Poetry Challenge.)

 My poem this week is another lyrics selection. It's from the book These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder. As a girl I absolutely loved this books series and especially this book.

Golden years are passing by,

Happy, happy golden years,

Passing on the wings of time,

These happy golden years.

Call them back as they go by,

Sweet their memories are,

Oh, improve them as they fly,

These happy golden years.

Books, Book, and Books

I've been taking a break from writing, while my critique group and some betas read through a revision. As a result, I've actually had time to read. Imagine that! 

Here are some of the books I've either finished reading or am currently reading:

I have pages of notes that I've taken as I slowly listened to the tale again. Brandon Sanderson is one of those authors who, like Jo Rowling, likes to throw in unexpected twists that he's warned you about but you probably didn't realize you were being warned. He's got a complex storyline going here, and he has a wonderful gift of making me care about the characters.

Fun Romantic Suspense with a nice twist at the end.Stephanie received a Whitney Award for her book this year. It was well deserved. Click here for more details about this book and her other works.

1st book in the Saint Squad Series, a squad of Navy Seals who also happen to be LDS. I'm reading Traci's books to my hubby, and I swear every one of them makes him cry. Click here for more about Traci's books.

2nd Book in the Saint Squad Series

Book 1 in a series with characters from Freefall.

Book 2 in the series.

Something that I enjoy is when we're introduced to characters we love and get to see them again in other books. When we read Freefall we were introduced to a storyline that was back story and only hinted at. It was fun to realize when we began Under Currents that this was that story and involved a younger version of one of the main characters in Freefall. 

Listening to

Fun YA suspense. Click here for a write up.

 I've only got a couple more weeks of no writing (I think), and I've got several more books I'm hoping to get to. *sigh* I suffer from the librarian's lament even though I'm not a librarian.

So many books.

So little time.

So what have you been reading?

Storymaker Conference - Report 1: How to Scare People

I came back last evening after an incredible three days. I got to meet some wonderful people and learn skads about writing. I attended bootcamp where four writers met with a published author (though one of the bootcampers was published). Our drill sargeant was Melanie Jacobson, author of the The List, and we spent six hours together reading and critiquing 15 pages from each of our WIPS. Learned SO much.

In this blog I'm going to report on the class that Dan Wells taught on how to scare people. Dan is the author of I Am Not a Serial Killer, Mr. Monster (which tied with Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings for the Whitney Awards Novel of the Year last night), and I Don't Want to Kill You.

His class was titled "There's a Bomb Under the Table: How to Write Thrills, Chills, and Suspense".  He broke down the process of how to scare people (in 5 easy steps). Dan only had 50 minutes, and he used movies to make his point, some of which he showed excerpts of. I don't write horror, but I do have suspense in my books, so it's important for me to understand how to make it work for my readers.

Establish normal and then break it.
He had a couple of examples for this one. One was a scene with Drew Barrymore in Scream where she gets a phone call that starts out seeming very normal ... until she realizes the caller is watching her from somewhere. Suddenly the norm is broken and it's a shock. Dan showed a clip of the George C. Scott movie The Changeling.

The familiar becomes unfamiliar.
He reviewed that dock scene from the movie Jaws, where the two guys throw out the Sunday roast as bait for the shark and one is very nearly killed. Personally, that was one of the scariest scenes in the movie for me. Dan said that the story is so well set up because everything acts normally ... until the floating dock turns around and heads back toward the man in the water. Freak out!

Delay the other shoe.
He showed the clip from Jaws where Brody is stressing because he knows there's a shark out there but the mayor won't close the beaches. We're given several scenes where people are doing just what people do at the beach (normal) but Brody's also seeing potential dangers everywhere. As viewers we're waiting for the other shoe to drop. We keep thinking, 'this time it'll happen' but it doesn't. And when it does ...

Pushing fear buttons.
Dan's example for this one was from Silence of the Lambs. It's almost to the end of the film, when Jodi Foster has gone into the building where the kidnap victim is trapped. One of the brilliant techniques in this scene is how the viewer is shown things people are scared of. We have the character's obvious fear--let's be real here; if it scares an armed FBI agent it's going to scare me--then we have a room full of scary, creepy things (closed doors, bathtubs full of icky stuff, a screaming victim, etc. and then the lights go out and the viewer then gets to watch the murderer watch the character without her knowing it. *shivers*

Show the monster when the time is right.
Unfortunately we ran out of time on this one and didn't get to see the last video clip. From my personal experience, I would suggest in this one to make sure the monster isn't ridiculous. I remember watching a movie on TV with gargoyles. They did a decent job creeping me out in the beginning ... until I actually saw the monsters (gargoyles). They were so ridiculous I laughed. Not good.

If you're interested, I'm providing the link to the first of a five-part training Dan did on Story Structure at LTUE in 2010. Very informative.