FLAME – Week One – Day Five

So who the *$@&* is Alvin?!?

Glad you asked. Tonight I have the energy to blog a little bit more then the last two nights. I also finished Chapter Two and I am now onto the second page of Chapter Three. w00t!

Anyhoo, onto Alvin. Alvin is Alvin (DSV-2) is a 16-ton, manned deep-ocean research submersible owned by the United States Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Most famously, Alvin was involved in the exploration of the wreckage of RMS Titanic in 1986. Launched from her support ship R/V Atlantis II, she carried Dr. Robert Ballard and two companions to the wreckage of the great liner.

Below are some links for more information about Alvin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSV_Alvin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Submergence_Vehicle

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=8422

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=8422&tid=282&cid=5879

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=8422&tid=282&cid=5880

http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=10995

So what does Alvin have to do my novel, you ask? Well Alvin is front and center in my second chapter of FLAME. The submersible is used the book’s main characters, Dr. Dawn Knutson-Bailey and her husband Paul, to explore the submerged ruins of Atlantis. I used all the links above to research Alvin so I could try to give the reader an authentic experience of deep-sea diving in a submarine. Hopefully I have succeeded.

So here are two insights into how I write...at least currently: I try to research stuff that I use in my stories, such as locations, technology, fields of study, people of note, etc. I obviously do this to make my stories more believable and hopefully more interesting. I also write a chapter by chapter outline before I start writing the book. Each chapter description might be brief—one to three paragraphs in length—but it gives me a general idea of what scenes are going to take place when I start writing that chapter.

Another thing I am trying out is creating a character sketch of each main character in the novel. I will describe their physical appearance and some of their background. I might add some future plot points concerning them, if they live or die, stuff like that. This is something I can refer back to and use to keep the character consistent.

That’s it for now. Yak at ya later.

Continuing on my write of passage,
James Baron