Write what you know or write from research?

DeneBebbo

I was recently made aware of a book set somewhere I've been on holiday. Apparently the author has never been there but did a lot of online research for her novel: a love story of people marooned on an uninhabited island. For someone who has been to the location it's clear there are some faults in the story (or they could be described as artistic license), and because the author hasn't been there she's unable to describe some aspects well.

Research can sometimes be needed for a story, but is it best to only set a novel somewhere you know, or at least somewhere generic enough that you can write about it? I'd been considering writing a story based on a cruise ship, and eventually decided not to, even if I could find some of the facts I needed for the story, as I've never been on a cruise ship.

Baggy Books

Cruising's been much debated on here in the past and it was pretty clear that those who hadn't been on a cruise had strong opinions that didn't actually compare to the experiences of those that had.

You can get so much from books etc but you can't beat using your own experiences too.

Of course you don't need first hand knowledge of something to use it in writing - but you do risk being slated if you get a detail wrong. You can bet your bottom euro that someone will pounce.

DeneBebbo

I suppose the middle ground is to try and find someone who has been where your novel is set and get them to give feedback.

Phots Moll

I think it depends what you're writing about. Sometimes it has to be from research, if your story is set in the past for example.

If the location is somewhere as easy to visit as a cruise ship then I think your research should include visiting one (even if you just have lunch on board) For a whole novel set on a particular island, I think it would be sensible to visit. If it was just one scene then maybe reading about the place and seeing pictures would be enough.

Alternatively write about somewhere entirely ficticious so nobody will know the place better than you.

BuickMackane

I think at the end of the day you can only write about what you know. I know I'm a bit green on this whole writing malarky but I think writing based purely on research is lazy and actually a bit arrogant, to think you know this place well enough to write about it when you only really know the facts and stats you've read in books etc. If a piece of writing is to have soul, then you've got to write from what you know. That's just how I see it.

Carol

Obviously if you write about the very distant past you won't actually be able to take that direct experience except from research. But even visiting the place in the current time can help.

Baggy Books

But you don't need to be a murderer to create a murderer...

Red

A balance of both. Writing is all about balance.

[quote=BuickMackane]purely on research is lazy and actually a bit arrogant[/quote]

Not necessarily. One of my novels is set in Russia in 1942, just as the Germans push for Stalingrad. Unless I can invent a time machine, there is no way of knowing what it was like for both sides. I only have pictures/film of that time, to understand what the landscape looked like, what happened. I've never travelled to the depths of the Urals or the Taiga, but I've researched it. I've had to research every minute thing about the second world war. I've watched and studied film and pictures that contain the most terrible, graphic images in order to get into the mind frame of those involved, because it's impossible for me to be there and be part of it.

[quote=BuickMackane]If a piece of writing is to have soul, then you've got to write from what you know. [/quote]

Again, not always. I wasn't born 70 years ago, so I have to go with research to make the writing real. Being a writer is also about imagination. Use it.

BuickMackane

I was talking strictly about the present, I should've stated that.

Of course if you make something up then you know all about it. That's the imagination side of it

[quote=Baggy Books]But you don't need to be a murderer to create a murderer...[/quote]
You need to understand the murderer tho

Jenthom72

I'm writing about zombies. Research is a bit thin on the ground.

I was offered a job writing a crime novel set in Amsterdam but turned it down because I'd never been there. I think in cases where the book is set somewhere you really need to have gone there.

DeneBebbo

[quote=BuickMackane]I think at the end of the day you can only write about what you know. I know I'm a bit green on this whole writing malarky but I think writing based purely on research is lazy and actually a bit arrogant, to think you know this place well enough to write about it when you only really know the facts and stats you've read in books etc. If a piece of writing is to have soul, then you've got to write from what you know. That's just how I see it. [/quote]

I tend to agree. The novel I was thinking about when starting this thread displays the research in terms of giving too much detail in certain respects, but is then let down by the lack of personal experience in others.

DeneBebbo

[quote=Jenthom72]I'm writing about zombies. Research is a bit thin on the ground. [/quote]

What about them documentaries by a guy called George Romero? :-)

Jay Mandal

'Write what you know' sounds as if writers would be limited to autobiographies. Or to the places they've been to.

JohnWho63

I would say, and hopefully not cynically, that if we only wrote what we know, there would be a lot less books around than there are. Sometimes we obviously have to do research, and I am sure that some novelists have written stories set in places they have either never been to, or otherwise know little about. It's all part of discovery.

Mrs Bear

If you were writing a historical story, you would have to go on research and your own knowledge of history - but you'd be wise to check your facts. If you were planning to set a story in a particular place, unless you had been there you'd be better off giving the place in your story a false, though maybe similar, name. What if your source is out of date and the famous restaurant burned down last year, or the streets where you set a car chase had been pedestrianised? You could be caught out.
The whole point of writing is to use your imagination, but you can't say such and such is, when it actually isn't, without someone writing to tell you about it when it's too late to change it.

Baggy Books

[quote=BuickMackane]You need to understand the murderer tho [/quote]

Then rather than become a murderer, read books about psychology and murderers. In other words, research it.

Tiny Nell

I don't think you can write blindly about anything. That would come across as so ill-informed, but I think writers' memories and creativity work in a very clever way. We can take details from visits, photographs, films and conversations and make a written setting visual and believable.

I recently read a book by Mark Billingham, and while I didn't think the story was fantastic, I was very impressed with the detail. He obviously knew the settings intimately, naming streets and buildings with confidence. As a reader, I was convinced that he had spent time in the actual location penning this part of his novel. I think you can afford this level of dedication as a prestigious, professional writer, however, as 'amateurs', we don't necessarily have the means to lay out the expense of staying in hotels at various locations around the world, or even in our own country.

One of my children's books is set in Scotland. I've been there only once, years ago, but I can still 'see' it in my mind. I have steered clear of naming specific towns and have taken the liberty of inventing a location, but, all the same, I think it has a believable 'Scottish' feel to it.

Lou Treleaven

The famous example is Steph Penney, who wrote The Tenderness of Wolves based in Canada in the 1860s even though she'd never been there due to her agrophobia. It won the 2006 Costa Book Award.

Nefertari

I was going to mention her book, Lou. It's one of my favourites.
My book for children is set in Ancient Egypt and although I wasn't there ( not in this life anyway:)) I feel that it has certainly helped that I have actually been to the places that I am writing about and some haven't changed that much really.

Lou Treleaven

I have to admit I didn't really like it but that wasn't any fault of the setting, which was very convincing.

I expect your Egyptian connections also help in terms of giving you a good author profile.

M. Welshman

I once did a travel feature on St Helena. The editor's comment was that it was so descriptive she felt she had been there with me. I never have been there. All based on research. But you can evoke atmosphere. If a place is hot, you sweat. Arriving at St Helena you have to take a tender from the ship. You bounce about, Maybe feel sick, There's spray from the waves. Write about that and you're in that boat. There's an elderly tortoise on St Helena. All tortoises have a lumbering gait. Describe it as you lean down and run your hands down its shell. Your reader is instantly there with you. So you don't always have to write about what you know but sharing the senses can get you close.