Is This any Better?

Awhile back I posted a sample product description of my WIP, Out of the Shadows. Mostly people didn't like it so I've updated it. Let me know what you think.

In 2025 a genetically engineered super virus nearly destroyed the world.

In 3146 the government is still hunting the infected, but they have been lying to everyone. The 2R virus isn't deadly. It's something much more dangerous.

Lythian Kennett is good at staying in the shadows. She has lived under the government's nose for years without arousing suspicion, until one night she walks into the wrong bar. After accidentally exposing herself as an infected, Lythian must go on the run with her best friend and a complete stranger or face a punishment worse than death.

When her world starts to crumble, she realizes nothing is what it seems. As the secrets, lies, and betrayals threaten to overwhelm her, Lythian isn't sure who she can trust, and the person she trusts least of all is herself.

The first chapter of Out of the Shadows is available at www.JimmieHammel.com. Link below.

Chapter 1

Weird Research

There were a few interesting things that I learned this week while doing research for my novel. I thought I'd share  some of the more interesting ones.

#1 - A planes engines don't turn the plane. There are flaps on the wings that control pitch and flaps on the rudder that control direction. Also, the "steering wheel"  in a plane is called the yoke.

#2 - If a person falls from 30 ft. the rate of survival is 50%.

#3 - On the moon however, a person can easily survive a 30 ft. fall. (assuming there is no damage to their space suit) They would have to fall from over 100 ft. to reduce their rate of survival to 50%.

#4 - When people talk about suffocating in an enclosed space, the real danger is NOT a lack of oxygen but excess CO2. The average concentration of CO2 in the outside air is .039%. The average person loses consciousness between 3% and 10%, depending on length of exposure and lung health.

#5 - When a sugar molecule is metabolized by a person's body, it creates 3 molecules of CO2  (which is expelled by their lungs) , and 3 molecules of water. This is why people crave sugar when dehydrated.

I love all the random things I learn about while doing research. Some of them are intentional, some are unintentional, but I've loved trivia my entire life so I'm happy to take it all. Learning is fun.

Ode to the Dark

What is it about the night?

After the sun sets the air thrums with wild electricity.

Just before dawn a final burst of excited energy ripples through the semi-darkness.

Then the sun rises, dispelling the magic.

Every dawn feels, not like a new beginning, but like the death of a mystery.

The sunlight leaves me no privacy.

Answers

Yahoo Answers is crack.  Just say no.

Character Personality Worksheets

I created a Google Doc Character Personality Worksheet that I would like to share with anyone who wants it. It's based on Cattell's personality theory. The link is at the bottom of the page. Feel free to use it however you like but if you want to post the link, please credit me.
Raymond Cattell's 16 personality factors make up a kind of sliding scale of personality traits. For instance, under Warmth are the traits "impersonal, aloof, and detached" on one side of the scale. On the other side of the scale are "warm, kindly, and outgoing." The chart I created is intended to give you a visible tool with which to define your character's personality.

How to use my version:
Print up the table. Read the traits from left to right and circle the ones that you feel apply to the character in question. Once you're finished with the row you'll be able to see if your character is more Warm/Cold, Reasoning/Irrational, Emotionally Stable/Unstable. I then like to score each trait. On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is irrational, and 10 is rational, Lythian Kennett would score a 9. 1 for warmth. 4 for dominance. etc...

Character Personality Worksheet

Your Word Count is Wrong

I ran across an interesting article today about word count. Evidently, when traditional publishers, or, I assume, POD publishers talk about word count, they don't mean the number that Microsoft Word spits out at you. What they really want to know is how many typeset book pages they'll be paying for.

Here's the formula:

If your manuscript is done in 12pt. Courier, with 1" margins, double spaced, 25 lines per page, then multiply the number of pages by 250.

It makes sense if you think about it. A page full of 1 line dialog is going to have a lower word count but take up the same amount of space as a page full of description... and your publisher/POD printer, has to pay for the paper even if the page is mostly white space.

I wonder if anyone has created a formula to let you know how boring your book is... If lots of dialog and short paragraphs make for a book that reads easily, and vast amounts of lengthy description are dull, it stands to reason that more white space = good. If that's the case, then perhaps you can tell if your work contains too much or too little description by determining whether your average typewritten page contains more or less than 250 words.

I'm going to do an experiment. I'm going to estimate my words per page for each chapter and see if my more exciting/actiony chapters have a higher or lower word counts than the more emotional/talky chapters. I might even go ahead and do this on a scene by scene basis if the results are interesting.

Back Story & Feeling Overwhelmed

So, here's something I didn't know. Writing a novel with 1,200 years worth of back story is hard. I have different versions of how everything happened. I really need to get all this stuff straight, both in my head and printed out in my binder. Right now, it's all in my binder... but it's ALL there. I need to decide what did happen and what didn't. And I still don't have a name for my villain. Actually, I have 8 names, but in my draft I just call him General General, cause I haven't decided which of those 8 names I for sure want to use yet.

Also, my writing process is driving me crazy. When I sit down to write, I write from the place I left off, but sometimes when I'm at work I get a sudden inspiration, or my characters start talking in my head and I have to write it down. The problem with this is that it has left me with thousands and thousands of words in scenes I haven't gotten to yet. Some of it is just snippets and some of it is entire scenes. For instance, my last two chapters are 90% done. When I sit down to work, having all these random bits and pieces floating around is starting to overwhelm me a little. 

Also, last night I dreamt I found a baby dinosaur, it was really cuddly but it had these super creepy teeth, then it grew up into a 1/2 person 1/2 lizard little girl... but it still had those super creepy teeth. I strongly suspect that this dream was my brain's response to my husband telling me yesterday that he wants a baby.