I’m a geek. Let’s just get that out of the way before going any further. One of my wonky pleasures of late has been cruising around the Web using StumbleUpon, a sort of remote control for channel-surfing the ‘net. In a bout of weekend stumbling, I came across several websites that might be of use to writers. They’re not what you’d think of as traditional writing sites—far from it—but sometimes the off-beat is exactly what you need to get your creativity in gear.

Give ‘Em a Name

More than once, I’ve banged my head against my desk trying to come up with the perfect name for a character. The Random Name Generator is a good way to get a list of names to start toying with. According to the short blurb on the home page, it pulls first and last names from the U.S. Census, combining them randomly to form female or male names. It’s got an obscurity scalar as well, a number from 1-99 that determines how commonness of the generated names. Set to 1, I got Delores Mcginn; dialing it up to 99 delivered Salena Munchmeyer. Munchmeyer?

Add a Face

Talk about time-suckers, Ultimate Flash Face is a good way to kill an afternoon while avoiding writing. Using a literary version of Mr. Potato Head, visitors can design a character’s face from a bank of elements. Start with the top of a head, morph and scale it to fit your needs, then add a chin, some eyebrows, lips… presto, you’ve missed dinner and everyone else has gone to bed. As much as it sounds like a pure writing dodge (it is), I actually got some satisfaction from seeing the face of a character that I’d only imagined up ’til this point. World, meet Nathan Butter.

Toss ‘Em Into a Place

Let’s face it, you can’t always write what you know where locales are concerned. In my previous novel, The Big Spin, I included a handful of scenes set in a small Italian hill town just south of Genoa. Having a friend who lived there helped speed research along, but I also got a boost from Google Earth, their free software that represents the entire globe using aerial photography and terrain mesh. Using GE, I could see that the town was on a steep hillside, and from the preponderance of swimming pools, I assumed it was an expensive view. When my characters drove to Genoa, I could name the route and call out landmarks along the way.

Another Google bit that’s proven helpful is their new “street view” project. There aren’t too many towns that are finished yet, but Portland is one of them. In my current manuscript, the guy from the picture above, is driving back from a crime scene cleanup job. I wanted to capture the look of NE Alberta Street as it transitions from a workaday neighborhood into the arts district. Once again, Google to the rescue. I visited the Google Maps site and did a search on “Portland Oregon”. Zooming in to the neighborhood of my story, I switched to Street View and was able to take a tour down the street, block by block, in wrap-around panoramic photos. It’s like hopping in the car, minus the carbon footprint. Groovy.

There you go; three new goodies for your toolbox. I’m always on the lookout for new ways to screw off and avoid writing research tools, so if you run across anything you think might be helpful, shoot me a comment! (Sorry, Megan. The strikethrough was too tempting to pass up.)