Day 43 - 476 Words of Puzzling About the Picture and About Setting

Tired, but I got some done. I realize I have to do a little more thinking about the inciting event - the picture that sets this whole thing off. It is partly an accidental happening but I think I can make better of it than that. I also think I have discovered a key minor character that I didn't know was involved. But it makes the local geography all that much more important.

You know, once upon a time someone told me about an exercise for personal essayists. It was a great way to evoke memories. You take a large blank sheet of paper and draw a small box with an x in the center. That is some place you lived as a child. Then you draw a map all around it.

This is also a great way to develop your character's surroundings. A lot of writers, especially of fantasy, like to draw maps of a whole fantastic location and then set their story within it, but I think it's more helpful to draw such a map not with overall layout in mind, but as if exploring a memory. What's down the path? What's up the path? Did your character ever go that way? What memories are associated with this room or that tree?

Running Total: 31698 Words.

31698 / 50000 words. 63% done!

Karla and Uncle Rosie sit down and discuss where that picture could have come from. Karla reveals herself to be more practical-minded than Chief of Police Rosewalt. More or less.