Picture Perfect

There is no food in this post.

There was going to be. I had originally intended to write this post on the weird parts of worldbuilding - the stuff you don't normally think about, the stuff that can really make you realize fun stuff about your characters you never thought of before.

But I got sidetracked. I decided, instead, to make this post about pictures.

Pictures?

Pictures.

Confession: on my old machine, I had over 5gb of photographs. People, places, you wouldn't believe the stuff I saved. And it wasn't all creepy anime porn*, some of it was actually relevant to my point.

Why? Because sometimes when I needed inspiration, I'd look at it. When the pictures in your head start to fade, when you start to lose that spark that made you want to open up your notebook and write, sometimes stealing a glance at the place you wanted to put on your page, remembering that it can be real, that it exists somewhere, that there's no reason why it can't exist in your mind, in your story, to your reader.

People to See

The internet is a big place, and there's lots of stuff out there. Looking for character inspiration? Try Portrait Photos, this awesome sick website that's been around for years and only my friend and I have ever seemed to have heard of it. I love looking through the faces in these pictures, it feels like you can take any portrait from that website and build an entire character just from their one still frame. And sometimes, you'll be clicking through the pictures mindlessly, and suddenly find yourself staring at your main character. It's a surreal moment of actualization, to be staring at the real, corporeal version of someone previously only in your head.

I don't know if she ever looked different to me. In that moment, years ago,
I knew that this was, and always will be, Rena. (Source)

Sometimes, writing fantasy, it's hard to get a clear picture of a place. There's only so many ways your mind will probably generate "a forest" or "a tree" or "a big building." I mean, for the most part, Google is your friend. In a recent scene I found myself trying to describe a bunch of super huge and pretty buildings, but I wasn't really sure what I wanted to convey.

So I headed to The Google, and simply typed "elaborate architecture."

Bam, the internet suddenly throws thousands of buildings at me (not literally) and I could just scroll, scroll, scroll till one caught my eye. You'll know what you're looking for, most likely, when you see it. And when you see it, it sticks with you forever.

Places to Go

The first 100 pages or so of my draft takes place in what they call the Great Forest. This presented a small problem. It's literally the worst name for a forest ever, and evoked absolutely nothing in the reader. But it didn't make sense to name it anything else, because that's exactly what it was. A great big forest, with huge trees untouched by modernity, left to grow close together and let very little light in. A mysterious place that bad things can happen in very quickly if you don't know what you're doing.

In other words, it was this:

Trees, trees and more trees. (Source)

This is where things get cool for me. That pictures from a website called A Daily Forest, which is, literally, a website full of pictures of trees. Awesome trees. Trees in all seasons. I practically threw a gleeful fit when I found it. Arms might have been flailed. 

I've found other setting reference pics by wandering around the internet.

Athsari Wetlands (Source)

One of the many reference pics I used for Finch Street. (Source)

Also, Pictures Can Make You Learn Stuff

It's a little-known fact that I'm obsessive about horses in my story. This page exists. So when I introduce a new horse (as ridiculous as it sounds) I tend to spend more time than is probably healthy on getting the exact right breed. In the story, one of the central "characters" ends up being Black, the first horse that Rena learns to ride before receiving her own.

Well, Black is based off of an Andalusian. Having an idea of what this horse looks like in real life let me expand on what would normally be just a set piece in the story, being more than just the vehicle they use to get from here to there. Because once I figured out what he looked like, I could turn to that page I just linked to see what he would be like. It sounds a little weird, I guess. But it works.

"They are known for their intelligence, sensitivity and docility." 

Two out of three ain't bad. (Source)

Anyway, you could do the same with cars**, or pets, or really anything that would normally serve as an "accessory" to a character. Reference pics to research to more solid writing! Hooray!

That's just how I use pictures, and maybe you could use them too. Memory joggers, research material, motivation, they all work to meet the same end. I just want to finish this damn story. I'm going to go look at more pretty faces, maybe I'll find Alex. Let's hope so, I made him kind of a cutie.

* It's sort of a joke, mom.

** Except for the whole personality thing. Well, I guess you could do that, too. It's your story, whatever.