I have been lucky enough to be able to visit the site of my upcoming book, but I used a number of tools to research and write before going to San Francisco. The trip was to fine tune, not to do the primary research.
The two tools that I find the most useful, and maybe you do too, are Google Street View and just Google search. I know there are tonnes of other tools available both free and paid but these two tools have been my saving grace many a time when I needed to do a quick research and get back to writing – i.e. during National Novel Writing Month.
Using Google Street View let me see that there was a perfect place in front of city hall to dump a body in Closing the Circle. It didn’t show me that there are cameras all around and I needed to make sure I dealt with that when my investigators were unable to identify the killer.
Using Google search has helped me to research my Urban Fantasy – so far I can’t see what it is missing but we’ll see as I write.
Looking for a name for your character? type in your question in Google search bar and you’ll find all kinds of places to match attribute to name.
So, if you are stuck for a location, type in an address or intersection and Google maps will take you there.
Happy writing
Perry
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