The Value of Photography

As I was writing some scenes, I ran into a road block.  These scenes take place at a location I hadn't been to in years.  My memory of that place was pretty rusty. In addition, this location is a setup for the final third of the book.  If I don't have a ring of truth to the description of the location, it won't seem authentic.  I can fabricate some of it, and I'm definitely fabricating the locations that don't exist, but they're all based on real locations that I've been to or experienced.  I wanted this location to be as real as possible.

Luckily, this place, while having a lot of security guards, didn't actually have that much in a way of real security.  I found that if I dressed the part, looked like I knew where I was going and generally looked like I belonged there, I wouldn't get hassled.  Putting a phone up to my ear, and walking fast, I was able to avoid talking to any of the security guards.  I was able to go to the different floors and get to where I needed.  I took my small camera and took shots from where my character would be looking.

It's one thing to enter a space and enjoy it for what it is.  It's entirely another to enter a space and look at it through the eyes of your character.  Admittedly, that was very fun.

So as soon as I got home, I wrote out as much as I could and looked over the photographs that I took.  It was plenty of good, creative fuel that I channeled into my story.