# Living the Research



## SeverinR

I found my old website and thought I would use it to encourage living the research. (I think I have posted something like this in the past, but I didn't post the website.)
Nothing will inspire you more then going out and experiencing the research, not just read about it.

Severin Rheiners former life, AKA Severin Rheinfelser. This site I built when I was an equestrian in the SCA.

Life and times of Severin Rheinfelser

There is no comparison to actually tilting a quintain, throwing a spear from a galloping horse, riding a horse on a trail or wagon train for several hours, riding in total darkness. Seeing a small group of men charge another group and the smash of swords and shields, the battle cries. Seeing the pain, fatigue and sweat after the fight.
Seeing the ladies caring for their fighting men. Or simply walking through a market place of people dressed in period, speaking in period, merchants offering goods in tents that are mostly period.

Research often, but always look for a way to experience the research, you won't have to guess how it feels, you can feel it, smell it, touch it, taste it. When you live it, it is so much more real then reading about it on a page or on a website.  If you live it, it can ad so much more to your description of the occurrence.


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## mulierrex

This is virtually impossible for so many people. Money and time are not things everyone has; in fact, I'd say a good deal of the members on this website have no money or time to dedicate to such things.  I think it's unfair to insist or encourage this, or make it seem "better" than reading or researching. And after all not everything can be lived. If I want to write a birth scene, I'm not about to go have a baby or find some random person to watch giving birth.


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## DragonOfTheAerie

It's a really nice idea, living your research. Experience can teach you in ways that reading, watching and listening alone cannot. 

I think that it's just as (if not more) important to think of ways you can use your own experiences to fuel your writing. As mulierrex pointed out, lots of us don't have the time or money to experience everything our characters go through...and that's ok. That's totally ok. I talked about this on a thread I posted not too long ago; do you have to have an experience yourself in order to write about it? I think not. But, you can use what you do know. And, you can make the most of experiences when you do have them. Keep your ears, eyes, mind and heart open at all times; be an attentive student of the world and life. 

I'd say look for opportunities to experience your writing, but also look for new experiences in general. They could have a great  impact on your writing, make it deeper and more mature. 

Totally agreed about childbirth. I have no desire to see it or experience it, and even for the sake of my writing I think it prudent to wing it in that case...


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## SeverinR

Childbirth: BTDT two daughters and Grandson and Granddaughter. Wouldn't recommend even asking someone to watch. lol.

I agree, most people don't have the money to buy and or care for a horse.  But there are many ways to live the research. 
Never stop looking for anything that will give you experiences you can write about.  

We write from the perspective that we know and have lived.  If we don't push ourselves to seek more, we will write from a safe and isolated perspective. While if we go out we can write from a perspective closer to the real thing.


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## Malik

I honestly thought that being a fantasy writer meant exactly this. A lifetime of adventures and experiences to work into your writing. 

That said, you don't need to own a horse, or take up fencing or HEMA or skydiving if you want to write about it. You would be amazed at how far a pitcher of beer and a basket of wings goes once you meet someone who has the experience you need. Everybody has stories to tell.


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## Malik

Adding, also, that Google doesn't do it. YouTube doesn't do it. Surfing blogs doesn't do it. That's one angle of research, but it's not enough.

Your readers aren't watching a movie. There's more to the story than actions and dialogue. The small details sell it. And you'll never, ever, ever, get your small details correct unless you go see for yourself. 

The taste in your mouth for hours after visiting an artisanal blacksmith's forge, the consistency of a pile of horseshit when you step in it on a hot day, or the way your ears ring and your eyes water after getting hit in the helmet really hard. These things, and a hundred other things, you'll have to experience -- or you'll need to skillfully dig these experiences out of someone else who's had them -- in order to even know that they exist, much less to describe them accurately. And you need to describe them accurately in order to create the suspension of disbelief that allows you to introduce the magical elements into your story and make them believable, as well.

Once the readers trust you, you can take them anywhere.

What, you thought this would be easy? 

You've got to get out there. File it all under "research." It all feeds the monster.

There's no greater sin than a life half-lived.


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## CupofJoe

Malik said:


> There's no greater sin than a life half-lived.


For a given value of "lived".


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## Svrtnsse

Malik said:


> [...] -- in order to even know that they exist, [...]



Quoting for emphasis. 

There's only so much detail you can add to the experience of stepping in horse dung before it starts to distract from the story. Sometimes it's enough that it can happen at all.

It's like the towel in the hitch hikers guide to the galaxy. If you have it with you, people will assume you're a respectable and organised enough individual to have the rest of your related paraphernalia with you, or at least to have packed it in the first place. Same goes with storytelling I'm sure.


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## SeverinR

As with all things about writing.  You take away what you can use and leave what you can't.
If you believe you can write without living it, go for it.  

There is a lot more to horses then manure, btw I'd much rather walk in horse manure for hours then step in dog doo once.

I offer this.
Dr Phil was talking to an overweight woman. He asked what she was doing to be more active. She said I'm taking up horseback riding. 
Dr Phil replied "That's good exercise...for the horse." 
Anyone that takes care of horses knows they are a lot more work then climbing on a sitting there for the ride.


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## Russ

I totally agree with the sentiment that one should do one's best to experience things that you are writing about first hand.

Some of the best novelists I know do this and it makes their work far better for it.  For instance David Morrell learned to fly small planes for one of his novels and has also taken outdoor survival courses etc.  Steve Berry spends hours and hours in the unique settings he plans to write in.  There are many more examples.

I have done medieval fighting for years, in and out of armour, and I can tell you first hand that I far better understand a sword fight from from having done that than what I have learned from reading any multitude of books on the subject.  I have hiked up to Durnstein castle and spent many hours in very old buildings in Europe to understand what it might be like to live in them.  I have also done medieval camping.  Next up is learning to ride horses.

The timing of the post is serendipitous.  I just finished reading the ARC for a book called The Renegade Writer which is a book that will be coming out about writing by a thriller writer who preaches that you should do virtually everything your character does to be a better writer (I also understand he will be having a TV show on this subject shortly as well).  Here is the current trailer for the TV show:






There are a million excuses for not doing things.  That just leads to a million regrets.

Like on the thread about being pulled thin, it is about priority and sacrifice.  How high is writing on your priority list?  Will I play tennis tonight or write for three hours?  My call.  Sometimes you have to sacrifice for your art and think hard about how serious you are about your writing.  What are you willing to sacrifice to do it well?  Is it a hobby or your calling?

But damn I will never forget the first time my sparring partner threw a full speed overhand cut at me and I had to block it...never.


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## DragonOfTheAerie

I'll ask again; am I inherently unqualified to write because I CAN'T go out and have these experience, at least not at this point? No time, no money...

I posted this question not too long ago (though mine was oriented more on emotional experiences) and the consensus was that you totally could BS everything. (To a point.) But...then there are people that say no, you have to go out and do it. Which is a depressing prospect for a broke teenager. 

My books don't have fighting in armor and horseback riding in them; heck, hardly any swords. The "experiences I haven't had" are mostly emotional. 

Also, how do you research riding a dragon? This world doesn't have horses, but it does have dragons.

I have no interest in hands-on, personal research of what it's like to give birth, have a limb sawn off while conscious, get a cut stitched up with no anesthesia, be whipped bloody, or eat absolutely any nasty thing raw (but grubs and insects especially). More commitment needed maybe? Heeheehee. 

I'm kinda thinking if you CAN put yourself through everything your characters go through, you ought to beat up on them a bit more...

The "you have to go out and experience your research" idea is kinda deficient in several ways. I'm all for it if you're able, but some of us aren't...


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## DragonOfTheAerie

(You guys may be laughing at my example of getting the limb sawn off, but it's a serious concern...not the amputation part, but the aftermath. I don't know what the healing process would be like. I don't know what it's like to live without your dominant arm. I don't know what phantom limb sensations would feel like, or even if my character would have them. I do this to a POV character, and it's a large part of the story both plot-wise and thematically. 

And I CAN'T experience this for myself unless I get my arm amputated myself. )


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## Malik

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I'll ask again; am I inherently unqualified to write because I CAN'T go out and have these experience, at least not at this point? No time, no money...
> 
> I posted this question not too long ago (though mine was oriented more on emotional experiences) and the consensus was that you totally could BS everything. (To a point.) But...then there are people that say no, you have to go out and do it. Which is a depressing prospect for a broke teenager.



I did a good chunk of my research as a broke college student. I took courses at a stunt school, I joined the SCA and the fencing team, and I made friends with a guy who was trying to become a swordsmith (and is now one of the finest in the world, 30 years later). In one summer I spent a month smuggling relief supplies into a country ruled by a military junta, I learned to surf, and I had sex with a professional clown.



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> My books don't have fighting in armor and horseback riding in them; heck, hardly any swords. The "experiences I haven't had" are mostly emotional.



Go get your ass kicked. Emotionally or otherwise.



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Also, how do you research riding a dragon? This world doesn't have horses, but it does have dragons.



For my pegasus saddles, first I had to design a pegasus. I bought beer and burgers at this bar down the way (I know you're too young for this, yet, but it's my M.O.) with our veterinarian after work and we went over pictures of horse and bird anatomy and he helped me sketch some ideas as to how the wings would attach. (Granted, it will never work in real life -- the leverage is all wrong -- but we have magic for that. And again, once you have the small details down, the magic comes easy.) Once I had that, then I realized I had a stirrup problem. 

I talked to some friends who joust, and learned the role that the stirrups play in combat. Once I learned about jousting (which went faster because of my background in martial arts and historic martial arts), I went to a riding school and talked to the instructors about jumping a horse, and what would happen in stirrups in a theoretical negative-G dive. At the school, I got to watch people doing it, I learned all about saddles and why they're designed the way they are. Then I talked to a yoga instructor at the YMCA to see how far it's possible to bend your legs in a given direction while putting pressure on them. 



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I have no interest in hands-on, personal research of what it's like to give birth, have a limb sawn off while conscious, get a cut stitched up with no anesthesia, be whipped bloody, or eat absolutely any nasty thing raw (but grubs and insects especially). More commitment needed maybe? Heeheehee.


Raw insects can be pretty good. Cooked ones are safer. And tastier.

And you can improvise. You don't have to be whipped bloody. Go spend a day clearing blackberries and feel your arms at the end of the day. Write about it that night. Really get miserable and study the sensations; free-associate and just write down whatever comes to mind. Then amplify it a thousand times. As to being stitched up -- you've never had to dig out a splinter? You can take that and extrapolate. 



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I'm kinda thinking if you CAN put yourself through everything your characters go through, you ought to beat up on them a bit more...



You need to read my book.



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> The "you have to go out and experience your research" idea is kinda deficient in several ways. I'm all for it if you're able, but some of us aren't...



You totally are. It's whether or not you will. It's a lifestyle choice. Seriously.


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## Malik

Russ said:


> The timing of the post is serendipitous.  I just finished reading the ARC for a book called The Renegade Writer which is a book that will be coming out about writing by a thriller writer who preaches that you should do virtually everything your character does to be a better writer (I also understand he will be having a TV show on this subject shortly as well).  Here is the current trailer for the TV show:



This, right here. This is writing.

I was just talking in an interview about an idea for what I'd write after my series is done; I'd like to write a collection of short stories about the adventures I've gotten into over the past 40 years that led me to writing this series.

EDIT: Gotta wonder if he'd ever have guest spots available . . .


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## Svrtnsse

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> [...] and the consensus was that you totally could BS everything. (To a point.) But...then there are people that say no, you have to go out and do it. [...]



_There is more than one way to skin a cat._

 ...by which I mean that there's more than one answer to the question, none of which is objectively correct, and none of which is objectively wrong.
What you do is you consider the options, make sure you understand them, and pick the one that suits you best.

Not having personal experience about whatever you're writing does not disqualify you from writing. 

Will real-life experience add depth and character to your story? Yes, probably - provided you're a good enough writer to let your experience shine through in your story.

Will real-life experience make your story better? Yes, maybe, possibly - unless your story is crap to begin with.



...and as I'm sitting here something else strikes me.
What is the difference between what real life experience brings to a story, and what research brings to a story?

The way I see it at the moment (the way I see things change at irregular intervals) is that research brings correctness, and experience adds depth. These are two different things.

Correctness, or freedom from obvious errors, is what prevents your reader from rolling their eyes and throwing the book across the room when you get something glaringly obvious wrong - like your main character putting their hand into lava to fish up an important piece of paper they dropped.

Depth, or believability, is what sends shivers down your reader's spine when your character stands outside in the cold autumn rain in the middle of the night wearing nothing but a thin night-shift and a pair of soggy slippers with stupid little bunny ears.

If you do your research and get things right, that's probably good enough for people to enjoy your story - provided your story itself is good enough and you're a good enough writer.

If you write about things you have personal real world experience with, that's probably good enough for people to enjoy your story - provided your story is good enough and you're a good enough writer.

See what I'm getting at?
It's not about what kind of research is the best - real life experience or online reading - it's about telling a story your readers enjoy. I'd say the only real "requirement" is getting your facts straight - and even that can be a point of contention around these parts.
Don't stop at the bare minimum if you don't have to, but don't feel that you have to live in an igloo for six months just because your story includes snow.


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## Russ

Malik said:


> EDIT: Gotta wonder if he'd ever have guest spots available . . .



I  know the guy.  I will let you know when and if the show gets rolling (I think it will) and if he will be looking for writer guests.


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## DragonOfTheAerie

Malik said:


> I did a good chunk of my research as a broke college student. I took courses at a stunt school, I joined the SCA and the fencing team, and I made friends with a guy who was trying to become a swordsmith (and is now one of the finest in the world, 30 years later). In one summer I spent a month smuggling relief supplies into a country ruled by a military junta, I learned to surf, and I had sex with a professional clown.
> 
> 
> 
> Go get your ass kicked. Emotionally or otherwise.
> 
> 
> 
> For my pegasus saddles, first I had to design a pegasus. I bought beer and burgers at this bar down the way (I know you're too young for this, yet, but it's my M.O.) with our veterinarian after work and we went over pictures of horse and bird anatomy and he helped me sketch some ideas as to how the wings would attach. (Granted, it will never work in real life -- the leverage is all wrong -- but we have magic for that. And again, once you have the small details down, the magic comes easy.) Once I had that, then I realized I had a stirrup problem.
> 
> I talked to some friends who joust, and learned the role that the stirrups play in combat. Once I learned about jousting (which went faster because of my background in martial arts and historic martial arts), I went to a riding school and talked to the instructors about jumping a horse, and what would happen in stirrups in a theoretical negative-G dive. At the school, I got to watch people doing it, I learned all about saddles and why they're designed the way they are. Then I talked to a yoga instructor at the YMCA to see how far it's possible to bend your legs in a given direction while putting pressure on them.
> 
> 
> Raw insects can be pretty good. Cooked ones are safer. And tastier.
> 
> And you can improvise. You don't have to be whipped bloody. Go spend a day clearing blackberries and feel your arms at the end of the day. Write about it that night. Really get miserable and study the sensations; free-associate and just write down whatever comes to mind. Then amplify it a thousand times. As to being stitched up -- you've never had to dig out a splinter? You can take that and extrapolate.
> 
> 
> 
> You need to read my book.
> 
> 
> 
> You totally are. It's whether or not you will. It's a lifestyle choice. Seriously.



Ehhh, well. I'm making efforts within my means...

I started Krav Maga and kickboxing a couple weeks ago, if that counts for anything, lol. Managed to get very (very) sore and take the skin off my knuckles punching without gloves...That's about the extent of it. Where do you learn to throw knives...? 

My homeschool group was going to have an archery team, but I'm not sure where that went...

When you still live with your parents, are broke, and have lots of things like completing high school competing for your time, it can be tough. I would like to actually visit places similar to those I write about, but it's not going to happen. My writing isn't inherently *less* (good, valuable, entertaining) because I can't back it up with firsthand experience. Please don't think I'm downplaying the importance of getting into your research and researching with personal experience because I'm not...but you don't *need* to do thisandthisandthisandthis to write. You need a pencil and paper to write. 

Getting experience takes time, too. It happens with age. I'm not amply priveleged in that department. Should I wait to get writing? Doesn't seem like a great idea when I could be just getting lots of writing done...

My list of things to research is pretty vast, and I want to get into it as much as possible, but with some things the best I can do is talk to people and/or watch YouTube videos. Sorry, but I'm not going to get pregnant just so I can have the experience of pregnancy and childbirth. I'm a teenager and don't want to be a statistic. Anyway. 

Eating nasty things? If I wasn't acutely emetophobic (fear of vomit...it's a thing) I might. Actually, I probably wouldnt. I draw the line there. 

Blackberries? Where? I live in a barren, plant-deficient suburb. 

Sometimes I figure my focus should be on making the most of what I *do* have rather than going after what I *don't* have. What do I have knowledge of? Panic attacks. Social anxiety. Umm...I've watched a cat give birth. (More than once.) I've *tried* to climb a tree. I haven't been on a horse since I was 8... I love the outdoors, but I've never really had an outdoors to love. 

Pathetic, aren't I?

I can't let anything stop me from writing (or feeling like I *can* write), though. That's what's important.


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## Chessie

Malik said:


> This, right here. This is writing.
> 
> I was just talking in an interview about an idea for what I'd write after my series is done; I'd like to write a collection of short stories about the adventures I've gotten into over the past 40 years that led me to writing this series.
> 
> EDIT: Gotta wonder if he'd ever have guest spots available . . .



Right. Because all real writing happens when  you travel to faraway lands and then write about those experiences. Non-fiction? Yes. But that video...sorry Russ, is bologna. Js.


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## Malik

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I posted this question not too long ago (though mine was oriented more on emotional experiences) and the consensus was that you totally could BS everything. (To a point.).



It depends, too, on what you're writing and what kind of writer you want to be.

I'm about to make a bunch of people really mad. 

If you want to be a pulp writer; if you want to just crank out minimally-edited, uncreative but serviceable books full of cliches and overused tropes and get them out the door as fast as you can because it will make you money once you have a catalog of books -- even perfectly forgettable, 99c books -- then no, you don't have to do your research. Plenty of fantasy authors are doing this right now. Kindle is full of them. Dare I say, overflowing. It's a perfectly acceptable way to make a living. These are writers who aim for 3-5000 words a day, writing stories that everybody already knows. It's the romance author approach to fantasy. Personally, I'd rather dig ditches.

If you do this, and you BS your research, then you're going to alienate a tiny percentage of fantasy readers. At least, to hear the pulp writers tell it. I think the percentage is much larger than they let on. The pulp writers say -- and you'll see this on other boards where pulp writers congregate -- that hand-waving is fine, because _most people don't care._ People read fantasy to escape, not to pick it apart.

The minority that hates it when you hand-wave? That's my audience. And the audience of a lot of other authors, as well. They're criminally under-served by the landslide of hand-waved, hastily-researched, YA bullshit. I know, because I've been speaking at cons for the last few years. Not as an aspiring author, but as an expert in military strategy, swordsmanship, and hand to hand combat. Every time I demonstrate something or explain something, a dozen hands go up asking why "Author X" or "TV Show Y" got it so wrong. And they get pissed off about it. They feel lied-to.

Those folks with their hands in the air are a fanatical, foaming-at-the-mouth-loyal readership, _if_ you can gain their trust. You gain that trust by doing this stuff -- and doing your research, and talking to people who've done it -- and not just telling it right, but writing deep enough that they suspend disbelief.

There's a reason that historically, the wildly successful fantasy authors have been in their 50's and 60's. And why "young" successful fantasy authors are in their 40's. You're likely not going to write realistic, intensely-researched and gripping fantasy in high school. 

But you need to write.

There's stuff you _can_ write at your age. Hell, plotting a series can take a year. It took me years of constant rewriting and going down rabbit holes with my story before I even realized what my series was really about; I'm lucky I didn't publish the first novel I ever wrote. Or the fifth. 

I read someplace that _Eragon_ was written while the author was in high school. It's not exactly a paragon of realism, but it covers some wonderful emotional ground that any teenager can relate to.


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## Chessie

Malik said:


> If you want to be a pulp writer; if you want to just crank out minimally-edited, uncreative but serviceable books full of cliches and overused tropes and get them out the door as fast as you can because it will make you money once you have a catalog of books -- even perfectly forgettable, 99c books -- then no, you don't have to do your research. Plenty of fantasy authors are doing this right now. Kindle is full of them. Dare I say, overflowing. It's a perfectly acceptable way to make a living. These are writers who aim for 3-5000 words a day, writing stories that everybody already knows. *It's the romance author approach to fantasy.* Personally, I'd rather dig ditches.
> 
> If you do this, and you BS your research, then you're going to alienate a tiny percentage of fantasy readers. At least, to hear the pulp writers tell it. I think the percentage is much larger than they let on. The pulp writers say -- and you'll see this on other boards where pulp writers congregate -- that hand-waving is fine, because _most people don't care._ People read fantasy to escape, not to pick it apart.
> 
> The minority that hates it when you hand-wave? That's my audience. And the audience of a lot of other authors, as well. They're criminally under-served by the landslide of hand-waved, hastily-researched, YA bullshit. I know, because I've been speaking at cons for the last few years. Not as an aspiring author, but as an expert in military strategy, swordsmanship, and hand to hand combat. Every time I demonstrate something or explain something, a dozen hands go up asking why "Author X" or "TV Show Y" got it so wrong. And they get pissed off about it. They feel lied-to.
> 
> Those folks with their hands in the air are a fanatical, foaming-at-the-mouth-loyal readership, _if_ you can gain their trust. You gain that trust by doing this stuff -- and doing your research, and talking to people who've done it -- and not just telling it right, but writing deep enough that they suspend disbelief.


??? Normally I agree with you on a lot of things, but this isn't all of the authors you and I read about on those boards (since I know we frequent the same places). Some of us do a lot of research. Just this morning I spent entirely way too much time reading about Novgorod. And I would say this applies to several of the pulp authors I've formed friendships with in the past year or so. I know you don't like/respect pulp, but come on...some DO research.  Without research, how do you write good fantasy or good historical fiction or fiction in general?


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## Ireth

I'd just like to add that, even if you do all the research (from books or hands-on) that you are physically and mentally and financially capable of, there are still things you're going to get wrong. Most Writers Are Human, after all. And human = fallible. A lot of things that people in older eras would have considered common sense were never written down, and thus lost to time. Not to mention all the libraries that have been burned down in crusades and such. Basically, nobody's going to have 100% knowledge of everything.


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## Malik

Chesterama said:


> I know you don't like/respect pulp, but come on...some DO research.  Without research, how do you write good fantasy or good historical fiction or fiction in general?



You don't. Which is my point. 

I'm not saying all. You know who I'm talking about, here. 

It's not just the pulps, either. I read or see stuff pretty much daily from major-league authors, and directors who have technical consultants, and THEY get it wrong. Laughably wrong. Heck, I'm sure I got some things wrong. But I'm hoping I got enough of them right to earn a pass.

I'm not saying everyone has to write hard fantasy; there's a place for fluff. And that's fine. It's just not my thing, and I think if you really want to endure you need to dig.


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## Nimue

This all seems like a garnish to a writer's life, not substance.  Not a requisite.  Do SCA, horseback riding, live in a cabin in the mountains...if you enjoy it.  Maybe along the way you'll pick up good details for your books, but a fun theme vacation won't hand you a silver bullet to make your writing better, or even more engaging.  Seems to me that sometimes investing your life into experiences tangential to your story could result in too much detail or pendantry, instead of being guaranteed to boil down to one or two brilliant details.  As Svrt said, experience must also be well-expressed.  It's not inherently more valid or important to the story just because you've done it.

It seems condescending to say people aren't trying hard enough if they don't go out and live their books.  What about affordability and access?  What about simply choosing not to spend your life and your vacation chasing after some shade of an imaginary experience...instead of actually writing and practicing craft?  

I find a great deal of inspiration and detail in a walk in the woods, a visit to the museum, a good documentary.  Harder to brag about, I suppose, but valuable nonetheless.


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## DragonOfTheAerie

Writing from experience is a rather depressing subject for me, since it typically comes back to "write but nothing will be any good because you're too little"...or that's what I get from it.


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## Russ

Big sigh.



> I'll ask again; am I inherently unqualified to write because I CAN'T go out and have these experience, at least not at this point? No time, no money...



No.  But let's be honest, you are less qualified than someone who has.



> I posted this question not too long ago (though mine was oriented more on emotional experiences) and the consensus was that you totally could BS everything. (To a point.) But...then there are people that say no, you have to go out and do it. Which is a depressing prospect for a broke teenager.



I don't think you can BS everything.  I think you can shrink the lack of experience gap by very good research or having an open mind, or good observation skills but I don't think you can BS everything.  IF that was the real consensus I am disappointed in the group that reached it.



> Also, how do you research riding a dragon? This world doesn't have horses, but it does have dragons.



While you cannot experience riding a dragon you can research what it might be like to ride a dragon and reason out, or even calculate that it would be like riding a dragon.  For instance, *if it matters*, you can figure out the speed of your dragon and find out what it is like for a human to fly through the air at that speed in say an ultra light aircraft etc.  But no one is suggesting that you can experience what it is like riding a dragon.  That is why they call it speculative fiction.



> I have no interest in hands-on, personal research of what it's like to give birth, have a limb sawn off while conscious, get a cut stitched up with no anesthesia, be whipped bloody, or eat absolutely any nasty thing raw (but grubs and insects especially). More commitment needed maybe? Heeheehee.



These are kind of absurd examples are they not?  I was going to assume you were joking but then I read the next post.  There are lots of ways to learn about what it like to be an amputee etc, but no one is suggesting you try it out.  



> The "you have to go out and experience your research" idea is kinda deficient in several ways. I'm all for it if you're able, but some of us aren't...



Since you want to try and take a legalist approach to this issue let's see if I can put something in quotes that might work for you:

"Experiencing what you are writing about can make you better at writing about it."

I think the underlying purpose of the discussion is to encourage people to experience things they are writing about to make them better writers.  It is also to get people to think about how important writing is to them, and what level of commitment they have to it.  Now you may have 700 reasons you can't experience something in your writing, but I don't think we should discourage others from doing it, nor is a post encouraging people to do such research really a call to post excuses why you can't.

It is difficult to admit that someone is in a better position to do something we care passionately about, but unrealistic not to do so.  

*Off topic rant*:  making excuses or pondering what you cannot do is not going to make you a better writer or a better person.  Let me make an analogy.  At my advanced age I still play soccer.  There are guys who are faster than me on the pitch.  In fact most guys on the pitch are faster than me.  Now I can make excuses about age, how many hours I have to work, my bad ankles, etc but they would still blow by me on the way to the goal.  Instead of making excuses I should do one of three things:  1) work on getting faster,  2) work on doing things as an individual player to reduce the impact of their speed advantage or 3) work on doing things as a team that help compensate for my lack of speed.  So lots of variables to work with if you are committed and bring the right mind set.  You might consider trying that approach to understanding your characters experiences.

*Side note on amputation*:  there are lots of ways to learn about what it is like to suffer an amputation without doing it.  Some more academic or clinical, some more personal.  As a lawyer I have represented many people who have suffered catastrophic injuries and have learned a huge amount both academically and personally what it is like to suffer an amputation, spinal cord injury or a brain injury.  But despite having spent years studying this conditions and hundreds perhaps thousands of hours talking with people who have sustained them I retain the humility to admit that I would not understand the experience.  Does that mean I would not write about amputations?  No.  It means I would write about them with respect and cautiously knowing the limitations of my abilities.  No you cannot BS everything.


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

I'd also like to add that your research is only as good as your writing. 

A person who HASN'T experienced something might be able to write *better* about that thing than someone who HAS...because they're all around a better writer.

The craft is the foundation of it all. Some would disagree and say the research is the foundation...but there's no point in research if you can't apply it with skill.


----------



## Malik

Nimue said:


> This all seems like a garnish to a writer's life, not substance.  Not a requisite.  Do SCA, horseback riding, live in a cabin in the mountains...if you enjoy it.  Maybe along the way you'll pick up good details for your books, but a fun theme vacation won't hand you a silver bullet to make your writing better, or even more engaging.  Seems to me that sometimes investing your life into experiences tangential to your story could result in too much detail or pendantry, instead of being guaranteed to boil down to one or two brilliant details.  As Svrt said, experience must also be well-expressed.  It's not inherently more valid or important to the story just because you've done it.
> 
> It seems condescending to say people aren't trying hard enough if they don't go out and live their books.  What about affordability and access?  What about simply choosing not to spend your life and your vacation chasing after some shade of an imaginary experience...instead of actually writing and practicing craft?
> 
> *I find a great deal of inspiration and detail in a walk in the woods, a visit to the museum, a good documentary.  Harder to brag about, I suppose, but valuable nonetheless*.



Also, this. This is all part of it.

My dream has always been to create a high fantasy series so detailed and so believable that one day a fan would put a gun to my head demanding that I give them the location of the portal to it. That has been the guiding principle in all of this since I was about DOTA's age. 

I had a headstart on this when I began writing, because I'm insane. I once rode my bike off the roof of my house. It's a lifestyle. (Also, my parents were nuts, which helped. I was raised in a traditional Blackfeet household, which is roughly analogous to being raised by Klingons. They packed me up and down trails in a cradleboard, FFS. I could follow a bloodtrail before I could ride a bike.)

Is it the only life for a writer? No. But I can't recommend it strongly enough. It has been one hell of a ride. I'm better for it, and so is my writing.


----------



## Chessie

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I'd also like to add that your research is only as good as your writing.
> 
> A person who HASN'T experienced something might be able to write *better* about that thing than someone who HAS...because they're all around a better writer.
> 
> The craft is the foundation of it all. Some would disagree and say the research is the foundation...but there's no point in research if you can't apply it with skill.


I don't believe anyone here is saying that research is the foundation. And hell, not even craft in some regards. Why do I say that? Because I..._inhale_...know authors who make a killing off their books, who are on best-seller lists, have a respectable fan base...and can't write worth a damn. Story trumps structure every friggin' time. Writing books isn't all about having beautiful words laced together. There needs to be a story displaying an emotional journey, changes within the characters that's also expressed outwardly, a believable and entertaining setting that matches plot, character, theme, oh and etc. Being a good or better writer really isn't the end all be all.

I understand that you love to write and that is your dream. I was the same way at your age, hell, since I could form complete sentences. But right now, your writing isn't going to reflect the depth that it will when you're older, like in your 30s, 40s, 50s. Malik is right when he mentions the age of fantasy writers that are all older. With maturity comes a depth of skill and understanding of life that really helps you just write better characters and stories in general. Themes have a lot to do with that, for example. 

Right now yes, you should be writing whatever you want. Study story structure, study outlining, plot points, how to pants better, the CRAFT. That is what you have time for, not stressing over there are certain situations you understand or not. I think the main problem for a long of young writers is that they have good ideas that they aren't qualified to write due to lack of life experience. That's not a bad thing. It's just where you are in life. Sometimes you express frustration that we all pat you on the head and say what a darling teenager you are. No. Not the case at all.


----------



## skip.knox

I would encourage any writer to open his or her eyes, ears, heart, mind. Grab life with both hands, by all means!

But never let anyone tell you that you are less of a writer for every vision, sound, experience you have not yet seen, heard, experienced. No one has seen it all. I'm 65 years old. I'm certainly not going to suggest you grow old in order to understand how to write old people. Stay young. The important thing ... well, Peter Weiss said it better:
The important thing
is to pull yourself up by your own hair
to turn yourself inside out
and see the whole world with fresh eyes 

That can be done by any one, at any time.


----------



## Russ

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I'd also like to add that your research is only as good as your writing.
> .



This is entirely true.  One can have all the experiences in the world but if I do not have the technique to communicate them then they will do me no good as a writer.


----------



## Heliotrope

Hmmmm, interesting. 

I often think of this as being similar to "method acting". Some actors swear by it, often living "in character" for months. If the character works at a coffee shop, the actor gets a job at a coffee shop. If the character lives in the streets, the actor will live in the streets. These actors don't drop character, even when the scene is cut and everyone else is having a break. 

Some say that the method acting of the Joker is what killed Heath Ledger. 

At any rate, I'm about 60/40 on this _for_ it. 

My book is called "Blackbeard Sleeps in the Subway" and my character spends a lot of time with the homeless in the subway. So yeah, I have spent some time with the homeless in my community, talking to them. Sitting with them. Observing them. Interviewing them about their childhoods. 

And yeah, I get a TON of valuable information that makes my characters feel more "real". From strange ticks and behaviours to interesting tattoos and scars, to speech patterns and back stories, my books is definitely richer for the experience. 

My book is set partly in modern day New York and partly in ancient Maya, so yeah, guess where I'm going on holiday this year at Spring break... 

One of my characters is based off my old Grandad, who was a British Navy man during world war two and has always been very open about life at sea. He travelled the entire world, hitting almost every country and sailing through the Panama canal in the 1940s. He knows all about huge squalls, and doldrums, and the stink of rotting meat that can't be refrigerated. He knows about boredom and dressing up as women to entertain the other sailors. He knows old songs and he knows how it feels to get a tattoo by a knife and pen ink on a rocking ship. He used to smack me on my arm gently when I was a kid and in his gruff voice he would say, "That's for nothing. Just wait till you do something." 

I sit with him and learn everything I can from him to use for my character. 

But I have also gone sailing and rode a tall ship myself so I could get the experience. 

And yes, I do think my story is better for it. 

Obviously, I can't do everything. 

I can't be at the World Trade Center during 9/11 (where my story opens up). 

I can't travel to a dream world on Jules Vern's Albatross. 

But a lot of it I can do, and I do believe it helps.


----------



## Russ

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Writing from experience is a rather depressing subject for me, since it typically comes back to "write but nothing will be any good because you're too little"...or that's what I get from it.



The point of suggesting that experiential research can make you a better writer, is to encourage you to experience things, not to discourage you from writing or devalue what you are doing now.


----------



## Chessie

Nimue said:


> I find a great deal of inspiration and detail in *a walk in the woods*, a visit to the museum, a good documentary.  Harder to brag about, I suppose, but valuable nonetheless.


My absolutely favorite thing in the world is a hike in nature. We live in the middle of nowhere, up a mountain, with forests stretching for miles. A hike is literally out our back door. This is what rejuvenates me and sets my imagination on fire. I've come up with my best story ideas in the woods. All I can think about is what it would be like if our mountain valley was magical in some way, if Baba Yaga lived somewhere in the forest, if bears were twice the size they are in reality, that sort of thing. So thanks for mentioning that, because you don't have to explore caves to write good stories about them (although that would be pretty sweet).


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

Malik said:


> Also, this. This is all part of it.
> 
> My dream has always been to create a high fantasy series so detailed and so believable that one day a fan would put a gun to my head demanding that I give them the location of the portal to it. That has been the guiding principle in all of this since I was about DOTA's age.
> 
> I had a headstart on this when I began writing, because I'm insane. I once rode my bike off the roof of my house. It's a lifestyle.
> 
> Is it the only life for a writer? No. But I can't recommend it strongly enough. It has been one hell of a ride. I'm better for it, and so is my writing.



And I have to say that my dream is quite different.

I love writing stories full of wrenching emotion, with characters that readers will cry and rage and exult for. That's what I want out of a story and that's what I want to do for someone. 

A painstakingly detailed, skillfully crafted world is a great thing. I seriously appreciate seeing an author's experience and research coming to fruition in a story. But in my own writing, it seems...actually sort of extraneous, really. The story isn't about what saddle sore feels like. I didn't write this book to show my readers the parts of a gun. Research is at best spackle holding everything together, filling all the gaps...it's not the foundation. 

I will suspend disbelief of just about anything if the characters are compelling, if their story truly ensnares me...that's not a lot of people, it seems, but that's me. Lapses in logic are a problem only in a mediocre story. Characters I care about cover a multitude of sins. 

That's me, but...I can't be a solitary case, can I?


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

Chesterama said:


> My absolutely favorite thing in the world is a hike in nature. We live in the middle of nowhere, up a mountain, with forests stretching for miles. A hike is literally out our back door. This is what rejuvenates me and sets my imagination on fire. I've come up with my best story ideas in the woods. All I can think about is what it would be like if our mountain valley was magical in some way, if Baba Yaga lived somewhere in the forest, if bears were twice the size they are in reality, that sort of thing. So thanks for mentioning that, because you don't have to explore caves to write good stories about them (although that would be pretty sweet).



I wish. Living with the wilderness out my back door is literally the dream. (Besides the writing dream.)


----------



## Nimue

I can agree with the idea of magnifying and extrapolating experiences.  Instead of trying to encourage people to buy arms and armor and devote their weekends to whacking people with sticks in the woods, I might say to look at your own life with an eagle eye.  Sensory detail from cross-country track might be useful for a medieval refugee running from the war.  The feelings you have exploring an old relative's attic or a musty bookstore can be compared to an ancient tomb or arcane library.  You may not have experienced the heartbreak that comes from a lover's betrayal in times of war, but if you've had someone break up with you... You see where I'm going.

And try little things, too.  Read by candlelight.  Examine the texture of tapestries in museums.  Try to identify herbs or wildlife in the woods.  Go to a Renaissance fair.  I feel like we often do these things anyway, out of pure enjoyment, but you can glean a great deal of observations from them.  Jot them down.  The idea of living a bygone or fantastical life can't be completely consummated...so do what you can, and what you want to.


----------



## Malik

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I wish. Living with the wilderness out my back door is literally the dream. (Besides the writing dream.)



Go to college in the Northwest. UW and Western Washington University are a short drive from the mountains. You can spend your weekdays studying writing and your weekends kicking around in this:


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> And I have to say that my dream is quite different.
> 
> I love writing stories full of wrenching emotion, with characters that readers will cry and rage and exult for. That's what I want out of a story and that's what I want to do for someone.
> 
> A painstakingly detailed, skillfully crafted world is a great thing. I seriously appreciate seeing an author's experience and research coming to fruition in a story. But in my own writing, it seems...actually sort of extraneous, really. The story isn't about what saddle sore feels like. I didn't write this book to show my readers the parts of a gun. Research is at best spackle holding everything together, filling all the gaps...it's not the foundation.
> 
> I will suspend disbelief of just about anything if the characters are compelling, if their story truly ensnares me...that's not a lot of people, it seems, but that's me. Lapses in logic are a problem only in a mediocre story. Characters I care about cover a multitude of sins.
> 
> That's me, but...I can't be a solitary case, can I?



This is why emotional experience is so important to me as opposed to more tangible research.


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

Malik said:


> Go to college in the Northwest. UW and Western Washington University are a short drive from the mountains. You can spend your weekdays studying writing and your weekends kicking around in this:



*Heart eyes*


----------



## Chessie

Those mountains make me melt...


----------



## Heliotrope

Yep, I'm in southern BC... 

This is my hometown  

Makes me so happy. I literally can just walk out my back door onto a trail.


----------



## Svrtnsse

I write a mean hangover.


----------



## Chessie

The road to my house: Bear Valley.


----------



## Heliotrope

Gorgeous! Alaska is amazing.


----------



## Malik

Chesterama said:


> Those mountains make me melt...



The second pic is where I asked my wife to marry me.


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

Please don't feel like I'm saying that going out and experiencing your research isn't an awesome thing. Because it is. And it'll give your writing a depth you can't fake or fabricate. 

But. 

If you don't, or can't, do these things...it doesn't mean your story as a whole is of a lower caliber. Your research may not be as precise, but...you can still write a good story. There's more that goes into a good story, and readers want different things. 

Get out there! Do stuff! Try things! Your story will be deeper for it. YOU will be deeper for it. Just don't let the lack of experience keep you from writing, or make you feel like your writing is garbage. (This is me very often.) And don't research-research-research at the expense of refining your writing itself because it's the writing that's going to hold up your story.


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

Russ said:


> Big sigh.
> 
> 
> 
> No.  But let's be honest, you are less qualified than someone who has.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think you can BS everything.  I think you can shrink the lack of experience gap by very good research or having an open mind, or good observation skills but I don't think you can BS everything.  IF that was the real consensus I am disappointed in the group that reached it.
> 
> 
> 
> While you cannot experience riding a dragon you can research what it might be like to ride a dragon and reason out, or even calculate that it would be like riding a dragon.  For instance, *if it matters*, you can figure out the speed of your dragon and find out what it is like for a human to fly through the air at that speed in say an ultra light aircraft etc.  But no one is suggesting that you can experience what it is like riding a dragon.  That is why they call it speculative fiction.
> 
> 
> 
> These are kind of absurd examples are they not?  I was going to assume you were joking but then I read the next post.  There are lots of ways to learn about what it like to be an amputee etc, but no one is suggesting you try it out.
> 
> 
> 
> Since you want to try and take a legalist approach to this issue let's see if I can put something in quotes that might work for you:
> 
> "Experiencing what you are writing about can make you better at writing about it."
> 
> I think the underlying purpose of the discussion is to encourage people to experience things they are writing about to make them better writers.  It is also to get people to think about how important writing is to them, and what level of commitment they have to it.  Now you may have 700 reasons you can't experience something in your writing, but I don't think we should discourage others from doing it, nor is a post encouraging people to do such research really a call to post excuses why you can't.
> 
> It is difficult to admit that someone is in a better position to do something we care passionately about, but unrealistic not to do so.
> 
> *Off topic rant*:  making excuses or pondering what you cannot do is not going to make you a better writer or a better person.  Let me make an analogy.  At my advanced age I still play soccer.  There are guys who are faster than me on the pitch.  In fact most guys on the pitch are faster than me.  Now I can make excuses about age, how many hours I have to work, my bad ankles, etc but they would still blow by me on the way to the goal.  Instead of making excuses I should do one of three things:  1) work on getting faster,  2) work on doing things as an individual player to reduce the impact of their speed advantage or 3) work on doing things as a team that help compensate for my lack of speed.  So lots of variables to work with if you are committed and bring the right mind set.  You might consider trying that approach to understanding your characters experiences.
> 
> *Side note on amputation*:  there are lots of ways to learn about what it is like to suffer an amputation without doing it.  Some more academic or clinical, some more personal.  As a lawyer I have represented many people who have suffered catastrophic injuries and have learned a huge amount both academically and personally what it is like to suffer an amputation, spinal cord injury or a brain injury.  But despite having spent years studying this conditions and hundreds perhaps thousands of hours talking with people who have sustained them I retain the humility to admit that I would not understand the experience.  Does that mean I would not write about amputations?  No.  It means I would write about them with respect and cautiously knowing the limitations of my abilities.  No you cannot BS everything.



Not absurd examples. They're things that happen in the story. I was being a bit facetious, but the point was you can't experience everything your characters do. 

And, I know it sounds like excuses, but...It honestly is a bit depressing and frustrating, when writers around you are out doing things and having experiences you can't, and talking about how it improves their writing, and how everyone should try it...and yes, it's true, but some of us are rather handicapped in that regard. We do what we can to make our stories the best we can, but sometimes it's apparently not enough. 

It can feel condescending sometimes. Others are "more committed", they take it "more seriously." It's not that I'm not committed. It's just that I have the rest of my life too. And I can't devote the utmost amount of attention, research and energy to every detail. And it's fine, maybe it's not as important to me as it is to others. 

With the amputation, the best I can do is talk to people who have been through it. I definitely plan to if I can.


----------



## Russ

Heliotrope said:


> Yep, I'm in southern BC...
> 
> This is my hometown
> 
> Makes me so happy. I literally can just walk out my back door onto a trail.



Is there still a CFB there?  That is where I did my basic training.


----------



## Heliotrope

Yes! Used to be. I think it's gone now. The campus is being used for the University of the Fraser Valley.


----------



## Russ

Heliotrope said:


> Yes! Used to be. I think it's gone now. The campus is being used for the University of the Fraser Valley.



I just looked it up.  It appears these closed it and moved the OCS program to Gagetown.  Bad decision.


----------



## La Volpe

Some thoughts on this:
Firstly, where do people get the time? And the money? I work a full-time job. And I don't have any money. Am I sleeping too long or something?

Then, this whole living your research seems like an easy path into worldbuilder's disease. I mean, it's really cool, and probably useful. But it'll be pretty easy to turn it into a research all day every day, and end up writing for ten minutes every two weeks. Or maybe that's just me with bad time management.

But the bottom line for me is this: I could spend weeks doing minute detail research, or I could use that time to write. I choose the writing.
To this end, I work on the idea that you need about 10% of the work to get 90% of the research. And to fill up that last 10% is going to be a hell of a lot of work (that takes a hell of a lot of time).

Malik or someone mentioned that you can only learn about the ringing in your ears of getting hit on the helmet by actually getting hit on a helmet, etc. But the fact of the matter is that most of your readers won't know what getting hit on a helmet feels like, right? So will those details really make it feel more authentic? More authentic than other, educated-guessing details?

As an example, after I got into combat sport (MMA), I started to realise that I'm a lot better at knowing how fighting works. So I thought my fight scenes would be better. But the best way to describe fight scenes is not to focus on the blow by blow, as I understand it. So in the end, my experience with fighting only lent perhaps a marginal benefit.

So what I'm getting at, I guess, is this: the goal of a story is to entertain the reader (or maybe that's just my goal?). So I do some fairly extensive research (all without jumping out of planes) and I get by. Maybe I won't be winning any realism awards, but if readers enjoyed the story, does it really matter?



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I started Krav Maga and kickboxing a couple weeks ago, if that counts for anything, lol. Managed to get very (very) sore and take the skin off my knuckles punching without gloves...That's about the extent of it. Where do you learn to throw knives...?



Ow. The same thing happened to me the first time I did bag work without gloves. And those things take forever to heal.


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

La Volpe said:


> Ow. The same thing happened to me the first time I did bag work without gloves. And those things take forever to heal.



Yeah, it just splits open again every time you make a fist...


----------



## FifthView

La Volpe said:


> Malik or someone mentioned that you can only learn about the ringing in your ears of getting hit on the helmet by actually getting hit on a helmet, etc. But the fact of the matter is that most of your readers won't know what getting hit on a helmet feels like, right? So will those details really make it feel more authentic? More authentic than other, educated-guessing details?



Fairly important point, I think.

A lot of what is written is shorthand anyway.  Add to that the fact that the purpose of writing these things is to insert an image, feel, etc., into a reader's head—or, to suggest only the key features of an experience—and experiential research becomes less and less important.  Third, we are tying that experience into a more or less fantasy world and story; so what we choose to highlight when setting tone and narrative will be an incomplete picture, relevant to _this story_, and will set itself apart from any sort of generic experience and even maybe from actual experiences in the real world.

That last point might be difficult for me to explain.  Let's say you've climbed to the summit of Mount Everest.  Now imagine that scene in _Fellowship of the Ring_, in which the party is being attacked by a distant wizard who sends lightning to cause an avalanche.  Or you're a hobbit traveling in a party of dwarves and while trying to cross a mountain range you are caught in a battle between stone giants the size of mountains.  These experiences are not like anything you experienced while climbing Mt. Everest.  Or imagine having experience living on a large farm in our own world; now, add bandits who roam the countryside or the local lord's armed men who occasionally stop and demand room and board and maybe access to your daughters.  I think when we add these other fantastic features (prevalent religion, political structures, economic factors, creatures and beasts, and so forth), and have placed the experience in the middle of a fantastic plot, the experience is significantly altered from real life experiences.

When you also consider the likelihood that your readers have never climbed to the summit of Mt. Everest or lived on a large farm...well, the task of making the experience seem real to your readers is much easier.

I do think that experiential research can help to ground us in the basics, probably freeing up our minds to imagine the other things.  I mean, if I have to stop and think about what tools, furniture, utensils, and so forth might be used on a farm, what the daily routine and work might be, the kinds of food that might be eaten, I'm going to be slowed down when writing the couple of chapters that take place on that farm.  But a lot of that could be learned more quickly by reading than by choosing to live on a farm for a year or two!


----------



## Russ

> Firstly, where do people get the time? And the money? I work a full-time job. And I don't have any money. Am I sleeping too long or something?



Why someone working a full time job doesn't have any money or time is a question beyond the scope of this board. 




> Then, this whole living your research seems like an easy path into worldbuilder's disease. I mean, it's really cool, and probably useful. But it'll be pretty easy to turn it into a research all day every day, and end up writing for ten minutes every two weeks. Or maybe that's just me with bad time management.



Sure any tool can be abused or mis-used.  I could be building a table and just keep hammering after the nail is far enough in.  But that isn't an argument for not using hammers.  The greatest time suck of all is probably your most used research tool, the internet.  Surely we are not suggesting it is dangerous for writers to use the internet?  I think when we encourage people to do experiential research we do so hoping they have enough common sense not to abuse it foolishly.  I like to think the people I am having conversations with are smarter than that.  



> But the bottom line for me is this: I could spend weeks doing minute detail research, or I could use that time to write. I choose the writing.



Resource allocation is very important.  No one is suggesting that you have to do experiential research to write.  Just that it might add value.  It is up to you if it is worth the cost in your case.  




> Malik or someone mentioned that you can only learn about the ringing in your ears of getting hit on the helmet by actually getting hit on a helmet, etc. But the fact of the matter is that most of your readers won't know what getting hit on a helmet feels like, right? So will those details really make it feel more authentic? More authentic than other, educated-guessing details?



I give my readers and potential readers more credit than that.  I think they can tell more authentic writing from non-authentic writing even if they have not done the activity in question.  Have you ever seen a good speaker talking about a subject and thought to yourself "that guy knows his stuff"?  Readers are the same way with writers.  And with broader audiences and the internet I think the reading public is more aware and critical than ever. 




> So what I'm getting at, I guess, is this: the goal of a story is to entertain the reader (or maybe that's just my goal?). So I do some fairly extensive research (all without jumping out of planes) and I get by. Maybe I won't be winning any realism awards, but if readers enjoyed the story, does it really matter?



I am pretty sure everyone can agree that entertaining readers is one of the goals of most fiction writers.  But that can be done in many ways.  It can be done with strong prose.  It can be done with great plotting and characterization.  IT can be done by making a reader feel like they are really there and giving them an authentic experience.  Experiential research is just one of a multitude of ways to make your writing better.  No one is suggesting it is the only thing you should do, or you should do it for every instance.

Rather than ask simply does my story entertain the reader, why not ask "how can I entertain the reader more"?  Personally I am not a big fan of "getting by".  If your fiction is meeting all your goals you probably don't need to add any more tools or try new things.  If its not than they are worth considering.


----------



## Russ

FifthView said:


> I do think that experiential research can help to ground us in the basics, probably freeing up our minds to imagine the other things.  I mean, if I have to stop and think about what tools, furniture, utensils, and so forth might be used on a farm, what the daily routine and work might be, the kinds of food that might be eaten, I'm going to be slowed down when writing the couple of chapters that take place on that farm.  But a lot of that could be learned more quickly by reading than by choosing to live on a farm for a year or two!



This is the reverse of what I would recommend experiential research for.  Daily routine etc is easier and faster to look up, or perhaps not even reference in your story.  I don't think fiction readers read fiction to vicariously experience the correct use of a trowel or are dying to see how the use of the three field system over the two field system drives the plot.  They look for things more exciting or thrilling, and that is what they are concerned with.  You also have to make a resource allocation decision, is the routine of the farm important enough to the story to invest a couple of years in?  Probably not.  But if that is what is going to drive your series...go for it!


----------



## Malik

FifthView said:


> Let's say you've climbed to the summit of Mount Everest. Now imagine that scene in Fellowship of the Ring, in which the party is being attacked by a distant wizard who sends lightning to cause an avalanche. Or you're a hobbit traveling in a party of dwarves and while trying to cross a mountain range you are caught in a battle between stone giants the size of mountains. These experiences are not like anything you experienced while climbing Mt. Everest.!



No. But this comes back to getting the mundane details correct so that you can introduce the fantasy / magical aspects. 

I don't know what it's like to fly a pegasus. More's the pity. But I've ridden a horse and done some hideously irresponsible ramps on a mountain bike. I've also been on nap-of-the-earth (NOE) flights in full battle rattle and I know what bodyarmor and bandoliered equipment does in moments of fluctuating G's. From these experiences, I can extrapolate the rest. If I get the motions of the gear around the rider's waist, the tingle in the gut during the shifting G's, the slam of the pegasus changing direction at the bottom of a dive, and the feel of the armor during climbs and dives correct -- sensations that many readers will be familiar with in some sense, even if they haven't had the same experiences as me verbatim -- then the flying horse is much easier to believe. The little details sell it.

Similarly, with the helmet / SCA thing. It gives me another angle to tell the story from. Instead of adding yet another visual to a fight sequence: "The knight hit Sir Dorkus on the helmet with the haft of the spear," or, from Sir Dorkus's POV: "Sir Dorkus saw the knight swing his spear, the haft hitting him on the helmet," I can talk about the sound inside Sir Dorkus's helmet instead, or that he finds himself on one knee with his ears ringing wondering what the hell happened. Because the blow that really rings your bell isn't the one you see coming; it's the one you don't see at all. And a reader who has even casual full-contact martial arts experience would know that and be familiar with the concept of someone sneaking a punch in on you. And the reader who doesn't have that experience knows it, now. The knowledge of the deeper details both adds narrative credibility and gives the author creative options.


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## La Volpe

Russ said:


> Sure any tool can be abused or mis-used.  I could be building a table and just keep hammering after the nail is far enough in.  But that isn't an argument for not using hammers.  The greatest time suck of all is probably your most used research tool, the internet.  Surely we are not suggesting it is dangerous for writers to use the internet?  I think when we encourage people to do experiential research we do so hoping they have enough common sense not to abuse it foolishly.  I like to think the people I am having conversations with are smarter than that.



The internet is a time-suck if you're not careful - yes. But there is an enormous difference in the time it takes to look something up and the time it takes to find some guy to hit you in the (helmeted) head with a shovel on a regular basis. Plus, the moment you involve other people (and fun and interesting activities) the draw to go back becomes bigger. So I'd say that going out and doing things manually will have a significantly larger chance to take big chunks from your writing time.



> I give my readers and potential readers more credit than that.  I think they can tell more authentic writing from non-authentic writing even if they have not done the activity in question.  Have you ever seen a good speaker talking about a subject and thought to yourself "that guy knows his stuff"?  Readers are the same way with writers.  And with broader audiences and the internet I think the reading public is more aware and critical than ever.



How would they know, exactly? Usually the "that guy knows his stuff" moment is because of confidence. That's why people fall for con men, no? All you have to do is pop in one or two details that the reader recognises, be confident in describing (i.e. don't avoid giving detail etc.), and he'll just assume that you "know your stuff".

Just inserting a few small details can make it seem as if you know everything about the subject. And those details can be easily gotten without actually doing the activity in question.



> I am pretty sure everyone can agree that entertaining readers is one of the goals of most fiction writers.  But that can be done in many ways.  It can be done with strong prose.  It can be done with great plotting and characterization.  IT can be done by making a reader feel like they are really there and giving them an authentic experience.  Experiential research is just one of a multitude of ways to make your writing better.  No one is suggesting it is the only thing you should do, or you should do it for every instance.
> 
> Rather than ask simply does my story entertain the reader, why not ask "how can I entertain the reader more"?  Personally I am not a big fan of "getting by".  If your fiction is meeting all your goals you probably don't need to add any more tools or try new things.  If its not than they are worth considering.



Well, the thing is, like someone mentioned way earlier in this thread, there's only so much detail you can add before you're detracting from the story. I've found that it's a sliding scale with a sweet spot.



Malik said:


> No. But this comes back to getting the mundane details correct so that you can introduce the fantasy / magical aspects.
> 
> I don't know what it's like to fly a pegasus. More's the pity. But I've ridden a horse and done some hideously irresponsible ramps on a mountain bike. I've also been on nap-of-the-earth (NOE) flights in full battle rattle and I know what bodyarmor and bandoliered equipment does in moments of fluctuating G's. From these experiences, I can extrapolate the rest. If I get the motions of the gear around the rider's waist, the tingle in the gut during the shifting G's, the slam of the pegasus changing direction at the bottom of a dive, and the feel of the armor during climbs and dives correct -- sensations that many readers will be familiar with in some sense, even if they haven't had the same experiences as me verbatim -- then the flying horse is much easier to believe. The little details sell it.
> 
> Similarly, with the helmet / SCA thing. It gives me another angle to tell the story from. Instead of adding yet another visual to a fight sequence: "The knight hit Sir Dorkus on the helmet with the haft of the spear," or, from Sir Dorkus's POV: "Sir Dorkus saw the knight swing his spear, the haft hitting him on the helmet," I can talk about the sound inside Sir Dorkus's helmet instead, or that he finds himself on one knee with his ears ringing wondering what the hell happened. Because the blow that really rings your bell isn't the one you see coming; it's the one you don't see at all. And a reader who has even casual full-contact martial arts experience would know that and be familiar with the concept of someone sneaking a punch in on you. And the reader who doesn't have that experience knows it, now. The knowledge of the deeper details both adds narrative credibility and gives the author creative options.



It's the small details that make the experience seem real, right? Well, isn't it possible to just get these details from research that doesn't involve actually doing the activity in question?

For example, you just gave some details which can now be easily transplanted into a book with a pegasus (or a dragon) or a guy getting hit on the helmet.


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## ThinkerX

I grew up in the 60's and 70's on an Alaskan homestead almost at the very end of the road grid, past our place the roads turned first to gravel and then to meandering dirt tracks that went nowhere.  About two dozen other homesteads within a couple of miles.  You can count the ones that made it on the fingers of one hand - ours was one.

Dad was an inveterate tinkerer, constantly digging up second or third hand motorcycles, snow machines, ATV's (he built a couple of those from the frame up) and other vehicles.  Homestead fronted a fair sized lake, boats, canoes, and other water craft.

I rode bicycles and dirt bikes in the summer down overgrown roads, raced other kids, and practiced jumping, wheelies, and other sorts of insanity.  (Drove the bicycles off the dock and into the lake a few times.)  Probably a bloody wonder I survived some of that.

Also paddled, rowed, motored, and sailed small boats from one end of that lake to the other.  I was a pretty fair swimmer as well; a couple times I swam clear across it and back, maybe a mile.  Did a bit of waterskiing - my younger brother could do the one ski thing, but I lacked the dexterity.

Winter, snow machines on trails that featured frozen lakes and swamps, and skiing.  Tried a bit of downhill skiing (on cross-country ski's) on brush covered hills, plowed into more than a few shrubs. 

Scoped out a lot of abandoned homesteaders cabins.  

We kept a large garden, grew potatoes by the bushel and more greens than I care to think about.  (Then and now, I regard weeding as torture).  Raised chickens and turkeys on and off (and concluded that turkeys were basically too dumb to live).  

Grew up building stuff - part of the house, a garage, sheds.  (Not to mention a fair number of tree forts with liberated lumber.) Later, rebuilt mobile homes and gleaned enough experience to do most of the work building the house I live in.  

Few fights with other kids.  Not my thing, wasn't very good at it.  Learned real fast though that serious fights tend to be real short.

Dad was one of the founders of the local volunteer fire department.  I got dragged along on a few runs, saw some people in bad shape.

I managed to avoid scrapes with the law, but some of the people I associated with, well 'criminal idiots' is a fair description.  Prison was almost a second home to some of them, and they weren't shy about recounting their experiences.  My youngest brother was offered the classic 'join the military or go to prison' deal, mostly through a spectacularly bad driving record. 

Then I grew up, went to college for a while, worked at this or that job, and I was left with memories.  I try some of the things I did in my youth, and I'd probably be either dead or crippled.

But I use those memories in my writing.  They are a basis for extrapolation.


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## Russ

La Volpe said:


> The internet is a time-suck if you're not careful - yes. But there is an enormous difference in the time it takes to look something up and the time it takes to find some guy to hit you in the (helmeted) head with a shovel on a regular basis. Plus, the moment you involve other people (and fun and interesting activities) the draw to go back becomes bigger. So I'd say that going out and doing things manually will have a significantly larger chance to take big chunks from your writing time.



Easily available statistics about hobbies and internet usage prove this to be factually wrong.  People spend waaaaaaay more time puttering around the internet than they do in spending the time and effort it takes to do experiential research.  If you choose to develop it into a hobby than it becomes your choice to spend time on that instead of writing.  Once again I think better of the people I talk with than to assume I need to protect them from their own weaknesses.




> How would they know, exactly? Usually the "that guy knows his stuff" moment is because of confidence. That's why people fall for con men, no? All you have to do is pop in one or two details that the reader recognises, be confident in describing (i.e. don't avoid giving detail etc.), and he'll just assume that you "know your stuff".
> 
> Just inserting a few small details can make it seem as if you know everything about the subject. And those details can be easily gotten without actually doing the activity in question.



You can fool some of the people some of the time...

Seriously I think better of my readers than that.  It amazes me that people will go through such mental gymnastics to avoid a fairly obvious conclusion, that someone who has done something has a better knowledge of that experience than someone who has just read about it.  Do you want a dentist who has never pulled a tooth to do yours?

Take DOA for instance.  Let's say we both wanted to write a story in which the experience of home schooling was an important element.  I went to public schools my whole life and don't have any friends who were home schooled.  Do you think that by spending even many hours on the internet researching that I would be able to write about that experience better than someone who has lived it?  That position seems ludicrous to me.




> Well, the thing is, like someone mentioned way earlier in this thread, there's only so much detail you can add before you're detracting from the story. I've found that it's a sliding scale with a sweet spot.



Which is both true and has nothing to do with the topic.  "Try experiencing something to understand it better" does not equate to "Put too many details into your work."  




> It's the small details that make the experience seem real, right? Well, isn't it possible to just get these details from research that doesn't involve actually doing the activity in question?



It is possible to get those details from research.  Once again, no one is saying experiencial research is necessary for good writing.  All that is being suggested is that it is something you can do that can make your writing better.  

Think of it like a really good editor.  You may or may not have the resources to invest in a really good editor before you take the next step with your work.  But that editor is a resource you can make your writing better. No one is saying don't write because you can't afford a good editor, we are just saying it might be something that can make your work better.


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## FifthView

Malik said:


> No. But this comes back to getting the mundane details correct so that you can introduce the fantasy / magical aspects.
> 
> I don't know what it's like to fly a pegasus. More's the pity. But I've ridden a horse and done some hideously irresponsible ramps on a mountain bike. I've also been on nap-of-the-earth (NOE) flights in full battle rattle and I know what bodyarmor and bandoliered equipment does in moments of fluctuating G's. From these experiences, I can extrapolate the rest. If I get the motions of the gear around the rider's waist, the tingle in the gut during the shifting G's, the slam of the pegasus changing direction at the bottom of a dive, and the feel of the armor during climbs and dives correct -- sensations that many readers will be familiar with in some sense, even if they haven't had the same experiences as me verbatim -- then the flying horse is much easier to believe. The little details sell it.
> 
> Similarly, with the helmet / SCA thing. It gives me another angle to tell the story from. Instead of adding yet another visual to a fight sequence: "The knight hit Sir Dorkus on the helmet with the haft of the spear," or, from Sir Dorkus's POV: "Sir Dorkus saw the knight swing his spear, the haft hitting him on the helmet," I can talk about the sound inside Sir Dorkus's helmet instead, or that he finds himself on one knee with his ears ringing wondering what the hell happened. Because the blow that really rings your bell isn't the one you see coming; it's the one you don't see at all. And a reader who has even casual full-contact martial arts experience would know that and be familiar with the concept of someone sneaking a punch in on you. And the reader who doesn't have that experience knows it, now. The knowledge of the deeper details both adds narrative credibility and gives the author creative options.



When I think of "experiential research," I think of it in two ways.

I'd mentioned recently (in another thread) that being aware of our surroundings is a kind of research even if we aren't aware that we are doing research at the time.  It was in the thread that DotA started about being young and relatively inexperienced.  All of life is a research project even if we're so busy living we don't always realize that we are doing research.  So drawing from memories and experiences we have already gained outside our writing experience:  obviously, more material than waking up as a brain in a vat and needing to seek out knowledge from some repository of written or audio/visual evidence.

The other way of thinking about experiential research:  consciously seeking out, and engaging in, an activity in order to do research; in this case, for a novel.

We can argue that having your helmet hit or a similar experience from life will give a foundation for the basics which never having a similar experience does not provide.  I'd agree, and this is the sort of thing I had in mind when using the example of living on a farm.  Personally, I'm a little jealous of people who have had as a hobby or profession horseback riding or care of horses.  They have a leg up on me.  (I was almost killed as a child by a horse; but that was a chance encounter and is the limit of my personal experience with horses beyond seeing them at a distance.)

But consciously seeking out an experience is a different matter.  Quite possibly, someone who desires to have a career writing fantasy fiction should seek out experience with horses or swordplay.  It would be an investment on a lifetime of writing fantasy fiction set in a medieval setting.  But I doubt that putting on a medieval type of helmet and letting a friend strike you over the head would be necessary for most novels if not all novels one might write.  Russ pretty much addressed this distinction when he wrote:



Russ said:


> You also have to make a resource allocation decision, is the routine of the farm important enough to the story to invest a couple of years in?  Probably not.  But if that is what is going to drive your series...go for it!



I don't think anyone is suggesting being a brain in a vat.   Or, ignoring the usefulness of real-life experiences.  The question seems to be over allocation of time and the usefulness of seeking out new life experiences when writing versus research by other methods.  

Additionally, if we are taking a range of similar life experiences as a basis for experience of whatever we are describing in our writing—extrapolation—then I wonder whether and to what degree many of our individual life experiences already provide much of that.  Can one extrapolate from carrying armfuls of groceries into the house, wearing heaving clothing like coats in winter, while children are nagging/fighting, to what it's like to struggle up a hill in full battle gear and supplies while being chased by an armed opponent?  Maybe.  At least, maybe well enough to make that description recognizable for so many other people who have never worn full combat gear in a combat situation.  I'd not denigrate the massive number of life experiences anyone 20+ years old has already experienced.


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## FifthView

Russ said:


> This is the reverse of what I would recommend experiential research for.  Daily routine etc is easier and faster to look up, or perhaps not even reference in your story.  I don't think fiction readers read fiction to vicariously experience the correct use of a trowel or are dying to see how the use of the three field system over the two field system drives the plot.  They look for things more exciting or thrilling, and that is what they are concerned with.  You also have to make a resource allocation decision, is the routine of the farm important enough to the story to invest a couple of years in?  Probably not.  But if that is what is going to drive your series...go for it!



As I wrote above to Malik, I think there are two approaches to thinking about "experiential research."  The subconscious/unconscious "research" we gain while living our lives, and the sort that is more directed, i.e., a conscious decision to experience something while doing research for a project.

I agree, allocation of time while considering what is necessary for a story seems to be key.

As for daily routine on a farm, etc....I actually think it's all those tiny details that a) add texture, depth, or the feeling of texture and depth for a reader, and b) are often the most difficult or troublesome part of writing.  I can write dialogue and action easily enough; but avoiding the proverbial "white room" approach becomes more difficult when I don't have a clear idea of those tiny details of the environment and activities that are basic to the milieu.  What _else_ are people doing as they are conversing?  For example, for an important one-on-one on a farm while waiting for word on their next plot-significant action:  What's the owner of that farm doing while the MC speaks with him; what's the environment?


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## DragonOfTheAerie

Wow. 

Thus far, my life has been painfully normal. I've lived mostly in uninteresting suburban environments. Additionally, I must be the timidest person this side of the Mississippi River. I was that kid who was scared to go in the water in swimming lessons. (I'm still scared of fairground rides.) 

I've always thought that writing could make up for the mundaneness of my reality (and being generally terrified to try new things, especially those that could get me seriously hurt); apparently not...

To me, "how your writing will be much richer and better if you use your personal experience as research" inevitably sounds like "how your writing probably sucks right now in comparison to that of others, who have an inherent advantage over you" in the dark recesses of my mind, where the Inner Editor dwells. (It's a nasty creature.) Personally researching everything (or even most things, or the most important things) seems pretty daunting. I have to write about tropical rainforests, savannas and deserts, but it's unlikely I will ever actually set foot in one. I have to write about dragon riding, but I'm frickin terrified of heights (and too much motion makes me sick.) Then there's the stuff I'm not sure how to research: riding a large cat? Is it anything like a horse? (Seriously, I'm trying to get riding lessons; they're too expensive and now that I'm doing Krav Maga which is also expensive they're a pipe dream.) I've already been over a lot of the stuff I don't have the qualifications to write in my other thread. It's a looooooong list. And that's only the stuff that I actually have to write in my WIP. 

Am I just being whiny and complainy without adding anything to the conversation? ...Sort of? It is kinda just venting, but...hear me out, because I have a point. It seems to me that everyone has an inherent advantage over me because they had a more interesting childhood, they're more reckless and daring, they have more money, they have more time, they've lived longer. It is really discouraging and frustrating. Especially since lack of experience is not something I can remedy through working harder to improve my writing. Pure diligence and study isn't going to get me out of that fix and that is not encouraging since diligence and study is what I *can* do. 

So, what do I think? Do I *believe* that I need all these experiences to be able to write sufficiently well? Well...maybe? Knowing what you're talking about is somewhat of an inherent advantage, isn't it? And I don't know what I'm talking about in most cases, so... But, I don't think that experience translates directly to better writing, and vice versa. I'm thinking that the most important thing here isn't having the experiences, but knowing how to use them. I think there's a skill to extrapolating from your own experience, to using your experiences to the utmost,to being as observant and receptive as possible, and those can all be honed. I don't think it ends with "have you done X thing or not; if so, you can write better about it." There's a lot more to it. 

In my other thread I talked about what I call the four levels of research: 

Level 1: do a thing yourself 
Level 2: talk to someone who has done it (interviews, conversations with experts) 
Level 3: read and research about it (Internet, books and YouTube videos fall here)
Level 4: use related knowledge and experience to cobble together an idea of what something *might* be like 

We're on level 4 most of the time, aren't we? Aren't we? Or drawing from a combination...


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## FifthView

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I'm thinking that the most important thing here isn't having the experiences, but knowing how to use them. I think there's a skill to extrapolating from your own experience, to using your experiences to the utmost,to being as observant and receptive as possible, and those can all be honed. I don't think it ends with "have you done X thing or not; if so, you can write better about it." There's a lot more to it.



Yes, this.

Way back when (at least a decade ago) I realized that my definition of "adult" did not synch up with the idea many others had.

It's not so much about age.  I've met plenty of people in their 30's, 40's, even 50+, who seemed to me to be as childish as children and who acted and reacted to things in ways that were probably not much different than the way they did when they were in their teens or younger.  I've also met people who were young but far surpassed many of those much older folks in maturity.

It's not so much about the number of life experiences.  See above.

It's not so much about responsibility level, i.e., living on one's own, having a job and starting a family.  See above.

For me, it's about circumspection _and what it entails_.  It's the ability to look back over one's life, to look around at one's current life, and to put it all in perspective.  _Circum-_ "around" + _specere_ "to look." Those who have those other features already mentioned above but who can't and/or won't do this are not really "adult" as far as I'm concerned.  At least, this is how I think of adulthood.

I think that a combination of writing experience/skill and powers of extrapolation are so important, they at least equal if not surpass the importance of having a broad life experience.  This isn't to say that these are distinct, however, since a broad life experience may increase one's ability to extrapolate or at least make extrapolation easier.  But we experience far more than we consciously realize, I think, and I'd wager that an ability to plumb those depths would reveal a much broader experience than we normally recognize otherwise.  You are fully alive each minute you are alive, taking it all in.  16-20 years' worth of minutes is a lot of minutes.


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## La Volpe

Russ said:


> Easily available statistics about hobbies and internet usage prove this to be factually wrong.  People spend waaaaaaay more time puttering around the internet than they do in spending the time and effort it takes to do experiential research.  If you choose to develop it into a hobby than it becomes your choice to spend time on that instead of writing.  Once again I think better of the people I talk with than to assume I need to protect them from their own weaknesses.



I'd wager there's a difference between normal internet usage which will make up these easily available statistics and internet usage to research for a book. I.e. if I had to guess, I'd say most of the internet usage in those statistics would refer to social media et al.

So that's not really comparable to researching a topic via the internet versus going to physically do something.



> You can fool some of the people some of the time...
> 
> Seriously I think better of my readers than that.  It amazes me that people will go through such mental gymnastics to avoid a fairly obvious conclusion, that someone who has done something has a better knowledge of that experience than someone who has just read about it.  Do you want a dentist who has never pulled a tooth to do yours?
> 
> Take DOA for instance.  Let's say we both wanted to write a story in which the experience of home schooling was an important element.  I went to public schools my whole life and don't have any friends who were home schooled.  Do you think that by spending even many hours on the internet researching that I would be able to write about that experience better than someone who has lived it?  That position seems ludicrous to me.



I'm still missing something here, apparently.

How would someone who has not experienced X be able to differentiate between guessed details and real details? Even if he could see the two side by side (unlabeled, of course), how would he be able to tell which one is real, if he has no knowledge on the subject?



> Which is both true and has nothing to do with the topic.  "Try experiencing something to understand it better" does not equate to "Put too many details into your work."



Perhaps I was a bit vague with this. What I'm trying to say is that you don't need every single detail of a subject/situation into your text, so you don't need to physically go and do the said thing in order to get enough details to make it work. I.e. "Try experiencing something to understand it better" gives you more details; but having more details does not equate "better story/writing/whatever".



> It is possible to get those details from research.  Once again, no one is saying experiencial research is necessary for good writing.  All that is being suggested is that it is something you can do that can make your writing better.



So you're saying that it is possible to get the needed details from research? I.e. the details that is needed to make your passage seem more real.

If you can get the same details from normal research as you get from actually experiencing it, then how is actually experiencing it going to make your writing better (as opposed to researching it)?

Or did I misunderstand what you're saying?


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## Chessie

I'd like to further explore Thinker's powerful post. 

You know how they say we should write what we know? I wonder if living the research is a similar concept. It's good to encourage one another to study craft, never stop writing, etc...but the reason this thread is important is because writing draws upon life experience. If we don't go out there and live...well...what do we have to write about? So that's how writing from personal memory serves us.

This morning, the northern lights were out. They were moving quick, bright, beautifully dancing across the valley. I stood on my deck, freezing in my pjs at 6:30 a.m., watching them in wonder. Imagine: what would it be like if they existed in the same way the Native Alaskans portray in their mythology? What if they were really spirits? What if the land received magic from them? 

I haven't lived in Alaska all of my life, but about 90% of it...and although I have memory of living in deserts and tropical places, Alaska is my home. It's the source of inspiration for my stories and world Mirovinia. Russian influence is big in some parts here. I've been to villages where it's apparent. The history is widely available here of how the Russians came in and slayed thousands. These are things I use in my stories because history fascinates me.

My husband jokes that the setting of all my stories are the same: forests and mountains. He laughs because he knows it's what I love and understand. I know what it's like to hike up mountains with a heavy pack on, to know what you see up there, experienced the intensity of it. I've seen bears, moose, lynx, wolverines, great horned owls, worked with bald eagles....all of these animals are in my stories in gigantic form. I've been on canoes, boats in the sea. I have studied Russian and Native Alaskan mythology for years. As a kid/teenager, I played Dungeons and Dragons with my dad, which is why my stories have elves.

In short, I ****ing love the wilderness and mountains and everything that comes in between. I have learned as much as I possibly can about things I cannot experience, like mythology. My fantasy stories all take place in isolated places because I can describe that to the fullest. So....writing what we know is, in essence, the same as living your research. At least that's the way I'm connecting it in my head. 

If we can't directly experience something, then that's where our imagination has the greatest ability to fuel our stories. We just imagine it and connect it to what we know. For example, and some may laugh at this because it's truly nerdy, but the NaNo story I'm planning takes place in an isolated town, set upon cliffs above the sea. It's inspired by the COW from Skyrim> of which I have played like thousands of hours no freaking joke. But it's in my world Mirovinia, and I understand isolation, falling in love, losing love to death, losing love because people suck, having your parents not like your boyfriends, etc. It is impossible for me to experience a fantasy world in the flesh BUT I can imagine it from my life experiences.

You see, stories aren't just about explosions and battles and large armies with knights. They're about people, emotional journeys, things we as humans can ALL understand. The more I write, the older I get, the more I understand that tension in my stories comes from within the characters. It comes from their feelings, from not getting what they want, from getting what they want and not wanting it anymore because they really wanted something else! Humans are all the same inside. You don't need to travel to caves and the Wild West in order to understand how to write something. 

What you need is emotion and a basic understanding of what the readers in YOUR genre want...because we all write different types of fantasy and have different audiences. My audience is different than Helio's Middle Grade audience. My audience wants the thrill of falling in love, gothic settings, a feeling of love in isolation, sensuality, sexuality, etc. Helio's audience wants the excitement of heists, the thrill of getting away with it, the feeling of dread of getting caught, adventure, etc. 

But BOTH audiences want entertainment, and they both want emotion. If we can all gift our audiences that, then that's a basic starting point that a lot of stories miss.


----------



## Chessie

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> It seems to me that everyone has an inherent advantage over me because they had a more interesting childhood, they're more reckless and daring, they have more money, they have more time, they've lived longer.


Sorry, but yes. You're in a group of adult writers. But I somehow get the feeling that the reason this frustrates you is because you believe that we're--in a roundabout way--saying you're not good enough to write like us because you're 15. That's absolutely ludicrous, since we've all been teenagers and some of us have children. Give us a bit more credit, please? 



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Especially since lack of experience is not something I can remedy through working harder to improve my writing. Pure diligence and study isn't going to get me out of that fix and that is not encouraging since diligence and study is what I *can* do.


This isn't what you want to hear but I'm going to say it anyway: don't take yourself too seriously right now! Enjoy your youth! We've all given you advice on what you can do right now that doesn't include physically living out your research. That comes with time as you develop into an adult, and for crying out loud, you can totally write fiction with teenagers and rock it. 





DragonOfTheAerie said:


> To me, "how your writing will be much richer and better if you use your personal experience as research" inevitably sounds like "how your writing probably sucks right now in comparison to that of others, who have an inherent advantage over you" in the dark recesses of my mind, where the Inner Editor dwells.


Perhaps this advice isn't meant for you _right now._ It's meant for when you're older and have independence over your life, which is in like 3 years. No one here is saying your writing sucks but the reality is that your writing will be vastly improved in like 15 years. Don't want to wait that long? Then you may want to consider doing something else with your life. Many of us started writing as kids/teens. As adults we have a perspective on it: wow, my writing has improved because I'm older. I'm not necessarily talking about craft because your writing is better than some adults that I've read. BUT...teen writing lacks depth due to lack of life experience. Why do you keep hitting us over the heads with it like we're all out to get you? It's frustrating because we're all trying to help each other here, and the whining doesn't so much bother me as the insinuation that we're all telling you that your writing sucks. Stop it. Please.


----------



## Russ

> I'd wager there's a difference between normal internet usage which will make up these easily available statistics and internet usage to research for a book. I.e. if I had to guess, I'd say most of the internet usage in those statistics would refer to social media et al.



Actually I think that is the point both of us are making.  I am suggesting that focussed research on the internet can drag you away to all sorts of unnecessary crap, and I thought you were suggesting that beating someone with a sword can become a hobby that eats up too much time instead of research.  But I stand by my point, that I bet the internet has sucked orders of magnitude more useful time away from writers than experiential research run amok.

Now let me add some anecdotal evidence on the point.  I have not sat down and counted, but I know at least 50 people, probably more who make their living writing genre fiction, between friends and acquaintances.  Many of them complain about time lost on the internet, and several of them have installed software to prevent themselves from going on the internet when they should be writing. None of them have ever remotely suggested that the experiential research that they have done has interfered with their productivity as writers. And these are all people who make their primary income from writing.



> How would someone who has not experienced X be able to differentiate between guessed details and real details? Even if he could see the two side by side (unlabeled, of course), how would he be able to tell which one is real, if he has no knowledge on the subject?



A combination of common sense, reason and potentially research if they are that interested.  Many people tend to have good BS detectors and I don't think they stop working when they start reading.  Now, I am happy to concede that a good con man can fool a lot of people.  But out of respect from my readers, where I can, I prefer to give them as much authentic material as I can rather than develop skills to put one over on them.




> Perhaps I was a bit vague with this. What I'm trying to say is that you don't need every single detail of a subject/situation into your text, so you don't need to physically go and do the said thing in order to get enough details to make it work. I.e. "Try experiencing something to understand it better" gives you more details; but having more details does not equate "better story/writing/whatever".



Trying something does not just give you more details.  It gives you the experience of having done it (or tried anyways).  It is not just about details (although you can pick lots of them us) it is about a deeper understanding of what is taking place.  It is like the difference between a qualitative evaluation and a quantitative evaluation.  




> So you're saying that it is possible to get the needed details from research? I.e. the details that is needed to make your passage seem more real.
> 
> If you can get the same details from normal research as you get from actually experiencing it, then how is actually experiencing it going to make your writing better (as opposed to researching it)?
> 
> Or did I misunderstand what you're saying?



Your misunderstanding is that is just about getting enough details, when the merits of experience go deeper than that.  What I am saying is, you can do a good job writing about something via straight academic style research.  You can do a better job with both academic and experiential research.  If it comes down to a choice between the two I think it comes down to a case by case analysis, but often the experiential research is better.

For instance, if you and I were going to write a story where the experience of having a South African identity  was important, your experience would make you far better positioned to write that story despite the fact that I know that the Proteas just white washed the Aussies in ODI cricket and the fact I ate some Biltong the other day.

I continue to encourage people to do experiential research, and experience life broadly and bring those experiences to their writing if they can.


----------



## Malik

La Volpe said:


> you just gave some details which can now be easily transplanted into a book with a pegasus (or a dragon) or a guy getting hit on the helmet.



True, but those aren't nearly enough details to write a book with. I mean, unless you wanted to use the same five or six details in every scene. There are a thousand other details buried in the experiences that gave me those few details off the top of my head.


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

Chesterama said:


> Sorry, but yes. You're in a group of adult writers. But I somehow get the feeling that the reason this frustrates you is because you believe that we're--in a roundabout way--saying you're not good enough to write like us because you're 15. That's absolutely ludicrous, since we've all been teenagers and some of us have children. Give us a bit more credit, please?
> 
> 
> This isn't what you want to hear but I'm going to say it anyway: don't take yourself too seriously right now! Enjoy your youth! We've all given you advice on what you can do right now that doesn't include physically living out your research. That comes with time as you develop into an adult, and for crying out loud, you can totally write fiction with teenagers and rock it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps this advice isn't meant for you _right now._ It's meant for when you're older and have independence over your life, which is in like 3 years. No one here is saying your writing sucks but the reality is that your writing will be vastly improved in like 15 years. Don't want to wait that long? Then you may want to consider doing something else with your life. Many of us started writing as kids/teens. As adults we have a perspective on it: wow, my writing has improved because I'm older. I'm not necessarily talking about craft because your writing is better than some adults that I've read. BUT...teen writing lacks depth due to lack of life experience. Why do you keep hitting us over the heads with it like we're all out to get you? It's frustrating because we're all trying to help each other here, and the whining doesn't so much bother me as the insinuation that we're all telling you that your writing sucks. Stop it. Please.



I'm not saying that you're saying my writing sucks, nonono. I don't think anyone's said that. It's me who's making me feel that way.  Or maybe just being surrounded by adult writers. 

Thing is, my writing is really important to me, and I don't know how to shake that. I feel like "I'm going to think this is so stupid when I'm older! I'm not qualified to write this! It won't be any good until I'm older!"...and so on, usual barrage of self-doubt. Except I have a reason to self-doubt, I'm not just a writer, I'm an underqualified writer who doesn't know what she's talking about...and it's kinda discouraging. So the wise thing to do would be to not take it so seriously, not get so attached...but, I have big ideas that I'm already very attached to that have many elements that are far beyond my experience to write from personal experience about and the idea of waiting 15 more years (or 10, or 20, or however long it will take) to be able to write them is honestly a painful idea. I get new ideas for stories and get excited about them but..."I can't write this. I shouldn't write this. I don't have the experience or knowledge to write this. What do I do?!" 

I know I'll improve. I want to improve. Im excited about how much I will grow throughout my life and I'm excited about all the stories I will write. I'm glad I started early. Of course, the process of improvement never stops. I'm going to look back on stuff I wrote when I'm 30 at the age of 50 and think the same things 30 year old me will think about now.  So...is there an answer? 

My thoughts and feelings on this are a painful bloody mess and I vent about it a lot. But it's not your fault. I don't know if it's anyone's fault. I'm just in a bad place right now, feeling constricted and frustrated because I'm not qualified to write my own stories. The ones I truly, deeply care about.  

Can I write them anyway, sure! But they'll seem stupid later and they'll be a lot worse than anything by adult writers and yeah, I'm embarrassed just thinking about it. 

What if I got my large project publishable by the time I was 22? But, what if I waited 10 years? It would be better to wait, right?


----------



## skip.knox

There are any number of excellent writers who were invalids and directly experienced very little. Maybe the reason why the experiential folks feel it's important is because it is important *to them*. Fine. No problem with that. But I agree with DragonOfTheAerie that the subtext, which is barely beneath the surface, is that folks who don't go down that path are hamstringing their own writing. I not only disagree with the premise, I'd say its expression is pernicious, especially to young or inexperienced writers. Why not simply say it's your opinion, which you've found valuable in your own writing, and leave it at that. Why be prescriptive?

While not disagreeing with the experiential school, I'll offer some counter-evidence. I have dealt more than once with SCA folks (or larpers and other re-creationist groups), mainly because I'm a professor of medieval history. While they know the most extraordinary things about some areas of medieval life, some of them retain the most mundane misapprehensions about other aspects of medieval life. Spending an enormous number of hours learning about medieval cloths or brewing means you don't spend those hours learning about medieval monks or theology or guilds. In the end, experiential learning is extremely narrow. Especially for the writer, the best part of what's learned is the extrapolation or interpolation from the experience. But one of the dangers, which I've seen with *some* of these folks, is falling into the trap of thinking that just because you have experienced X, you now know more about X than anyone else could possibly know. Not saying that's the case around here, only that the experiential route is not without its own drawbacks and pitfalls.


----------



## FifthView

It seems to me the thread has gone from a) the idea of seeking out and living new experiences as a form of research to b) using the experiences we already possess and being able to extrapolate from those.

So I'm returned to Thinker's observation:



ThinkerX said:


> Then I grew up, went to college for a while, worked at this or that job, and I was left with memories.  I try some of the things I did in my youth, and I'd probably be either dead or crippled.
> 
> But I use those memories in my writing.  They are a basis for extrapolation.



It's all well and good if you've grown up in Alaska (or Missouri or London or....) and you can draw on those experiences.  Quite right, anyone who has grown up in X situation/environment experiencing those things can draw on those memories when extrapolating scenes and events and activities being describe in a novel.

It's quite another thing to say, "If you want to write the things Thinker has written," _now_, then you must immediately take a break from your life and go live 18 years (or so) in Alaska, in approximately the same conditions, and after those 18 years, write whatever it is you want to write.

The interesting question for me is the "usefulness gap" (I'll call it this) between _new_ experiential research and other forms of research when starting from a position in the here-and-now.


----------



## skip.knox

>How would someone who has not experienced X be able to differentiate between guessed details and real details?

Absolutely. I'll go further. A good many people believe they know things. They know, for example, that kings wield absolute power and can do whatever they want. If I show a king limited by his barons, bound by custom, taking the oath to introduce no new laws, calling up his army only to find half of his so-called vassals don't show up and half of those leave early, and so on, I'm going to have a certain number of reviews say my story was not realistic.

This can, however, be handled. To take a famous example, one of the themes in _War and Peace_ is that Napoleon was not a great field general. In particular, Tolstoy argued that *no one* could be a great field general because during the battle no one could know what the devil was going on. He was at great pains to make this case. He took those pains because he knew not only that many of his readers thought Napoleon was a military genius, but also that they believed that generals ran battles. Given how the book has sold, I'd say he succeeded. So, it can be done, but the author needs to know which aspects of his story contain "realism" and of those, which may violate his readers' presuppositions.


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

I suppose the idea that drives me bonkers is that now is "just practice" and the serious stuff won't come until much later. 

I guess it's all my inner whiny teenager coming out, "but I want to do it NOOOOOWWWWW...." Childish? Yeah. Immature? Yeah. Should I just suck it up? Probably...

My ideas are very important to me, though. Having to put them off for 10-20 years is a hopefully understandably frustrating idea. Of course I want to feel like what I'm writing now is worth something and important. Classic motivation of youth but for me, powerful. My current WIP is a side project to distract from the one I was working on, but ten years of side projects will get annoying. I get too attached to my favorite ideas, I know. The whole golden idea thing. Should I...? I just don't know. 

I should stop complaining by now, I'm probably driving y'all crazy. Nonetheless I'm having a crippling emotional crisis.


----------



## Russ

FifthView said:


> It seems to me the thread has gone from a) the idea of seeking out and living new experiences as a form of research to b) using the experiences we already possess and being able to extrapolate from those.



The thread discusses the value of experiential research or experience in writing.  It can be obtained many ways. I see it as a positive no matter which way you obtain it.



> It's quite another thing to say, "If you want to write the things Thinker has written," _now_, then you must immediately take a break from your life and go live 18 years (or so) in Alaska, in approximately the same conditions, and after those 18 years, write whatever it is you want to write.



Has anyone here (other than you) suggested that?  Or that one should live for a year or more on a farm in order to write farm scenes?  Or are you arguing with yourself?


----------



## Russ

skip.knox said:


> >How would someone who has not experienced X be able to differentiate between guessed details and real details?
> 
> Absolutely. I'll go further. A good many people believe they know things. They know, for example, that kings wield absolute power and can do whatever they want. If I show a king limited by his barons, bound by custom, taking the oath to introduce no new laws, calling up his army only to find half of his so-called vassals don't show up and half of those leave early, and so on, I'm going to have a certain number of reviews say my story was not realistic.
> 
> This can, however, be handled. To take a famous example, one of the themes in _War and Peace_ is that Napoleon was not a great field general. In particular, Tolstoy argued that *no one* could be a great field general because during the battle no one could know what the devil was going on. He was at great pains to make this case. He took those pains because he knew not only that many of his readers thought Napoleon was a military genius, but also that they believed that generals ran battles. Given how the book has sold, I'd say he succeeded. So, it can be done, but the author needs to know which aspects of his story contain "realism" and of those, which may violate his readers' presuppositions.



Which begs the question, if readers have unrealistic assumptions should that discourage one from relying on experience or experiential research?  I think that question is answered on a case by case basis depending on what the author is trying to achieve.


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

Russ said:


> Which begs the question, if readers have unrealistic assumptions should that discourage one from relying on experience or experiential research?  I think that question is answered on a case by case basis depending on what the author is trying to achieve.



There's a page on TVTropes about "truths" in fiction that are completely unrealistic, but are generally accepted by audiences as realistic because they're so commonly used. In these cases, if X was actually depicted realistically, the audience would be bewildered.


----------



## Chessie

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I suppose the idea that drives me bonkers is that now is "just practice" and the serious stuff won't come until much later.
> 
> I guess it's all my inner whiny teenager coming out, "but I want to do it NOOOOOWWWWW...." Childish? Yeah. Immature? Yeah. Should I just suck it up? Probably...
> 
> My ideas are very important to me, though. Having to put them off for 10-20 years is a hopefully understandably frustrating idea. Of course I want to feel like what I'm writing now is worth something and important. Classic motivation of youth but for me, powerful. My current WIP is a side project to distract from the one I was working on, but ten years of side projects will get annoying. I get too attached to my favorite ideas, I know. The whole golden idea thing. Should I...? I just don't know.
> 
> I should stop complaining by now, I'm probably driving y'all crazy. Nonetheless I'm having a crippling emotional crisis.



Just write. Who cares about anything else? A lot of writers have this romantic idea that publication is easier to come by because "my stuff is good". Do you want to know the truth? Being a published author doesn't mean squat. Diddly squat. Depending on which road an author ends up choosing to publish (trade or Indie nowadays), the reality is more like this:

-write
-1/4 of the way in WOW this fxxx sucks, let me start over
-my characters are crap, my story is crap
-I have a deadline in 30 days and my ms is only halfway complete
-my beta readers say these parts don't make sense, let me rewrite that
-my editor has red marks all over my ms, I'm doomed
-readers are asking when the next book comes out...IDK!
-marketing, social networks, anthologies with other writers
-I promised that writer friend I'd read his ms 
-I'm partway into my ms but have to redo my outline because problems...

And on it goes. It's not easy. So don't be in a rush to get there. And oh, well, at 22 you might not be able to get publication. Traditional publishing takes a long time! And then what if your book doesn't sell? If you don't make back your advance? That's a reality many writers face and then their publisher drops them. Or Amazon drops you in the charts because you didn't sell well, or you get bad reviews and one stars, or Goodreads hates you.

So just write. Because the life of an author isn't anything as amazing as a lot of people think that it is.


----------



## FifthView

Russ said:


> The thread discusses the value of experiential research or experience in writing.  It can be obtained many ways. I see it as a positive no matter which way you obtain it.
> 
> 
> 
> Has anyone here (other than you) suggested that?  Or that one should live for a year or more on a farm in order to write farm scenes?  Or are you arguing with yourself?



Let's try not to insinuate something devious or turn the discussion in an _ad hominem_ direction, okay?

I gave it as an example, and that's it, between the two diverging approaches to the idea of "experiential research."  

Thinker gave one, which was basically an idea of drawing upon what we've already experienced, perhaps years in the past.  

The thread started out, as far as I can tell, considering "experiential research" as a method for seeking out _new_ experiences _now_.

I split those hairs because there seems to be a confusion in the discussion, and I'm not sure everyone's on the same page about what we are discussing.

If we are discussing "seeking out new experiences" as a form of experiential research, we can say something about what we can do, now and into the future, and weigh the usefulness of that approach against non-experiential forms of research.

But if we are discussing being able to tap into and extrapolate from a lifetime's worth of experience gained prior to the here and now, then there's little use, in my opinion, suggesting that we engage in experiential research–because we already did, years in the past.  What's left is tapping into it.


----------



## La Volpe

Russ said:


> Now let me add some anecdotal evidence on the point.  I have not sat down and counted, but I know at least 50 people, probably more who make their living writing genre fiction, between friends and acquaintances.  Many of them complain about time lost on the internet, and several of them have installed software to prevent themselves from going on the internet when they should be writing. None of them have ever remotely suggested that the experiential research that they have done has interfered with their productivity as writers. And these are all people who make their primary income from writing.



But we still need to differentiate "the internet" and "researching on the internet". I know lots of people that have problems with productivity because of the internet. But looking something up is not the same as social media or watching too many Youtube videos about bears.

And besides, research does not need to be tied to the internet. It's just a convenient way of getting the information. What I'm trying to say is that if you want to know what it's like to be hit on the head while wearing a helmet, you can spend a couple of days trying to find a group of people who do that kind of thing, buy/borrow a helmet from someone, get together with said people and get yourself hit on the head while wearing a helmet. Or, you could just ask Malik what it's like, and he'll tell you.

I.e. you get the same result, but one took a lot longer.



> A combination of common sense, reason and potentially research if they are that interested.  Many people tend to have good BS detectors and I don't think they stop working when they start reading.  Now, I am happy to concede that a good con man can fool a lot of people.  But out of respect from my readers, where I can, I prefer to give them as much authentic material as I can rather than develop skills to put one over on them.



But the writer and the reader have the same access to common sense, reason, and research. Ergo, if the reader can reason that this or that bit doesn't sound right, so can the writer. Ergo, he'll write things (with the help of common sense, reason, and research) that sound right.

Given that the reader has exactly the same amount of resources (or less) as the writer, why would the reader be the superior regarding the identification of 'true sounding' details?



> Trying something does not just give you more details.  It gives you the experience of having done it (or tried anyways).  It is not just about details (although you can pick lots of them us) it is about a deeper understanding of what is taking place.  It is like the difference between a qualitative evaluation and a quantitative evaluation.



Okay, I can accept that having an experience will give you an understanding of how the parts work. Just like you can't learn how to swim by reading a textbook.

However, how does that translate in writing? I.e. what tangible things are you getting from experience that you can't also get from research?



> Your misunderstanding is that is just about getting enough details, when the merits of experience go deeper than that.  What I am saying is, you can do a good job writing about something via straight academic style research.  You can do a better job with both academic and experiential research.  If it comes down to a choice between the two I think it comes down to a case by case analysis, but often the experiential research is better.
> 
> For instance, if you and I were going to write a story where the experience of having a South African identity  was important, your experience would make you far better positioned to write that story despite the fact that I know that the Proteas just white washed the Aussies in ODI cricket and the fact I ate some Biltong the other day.



Similar to my question above, why? You say that experiential research in combination with academic is better. But why is it better? What exactly is it that you get from experience (that can be used in writing a scene) that you can't also be gotten from researching?

What we're essentially doing is translating experiences into text, correct? Experiences being translated into text will lose some nuances, I'm sure. But you still get an idea of how the experience is.

So, whether you're taking the experience and translating it into text, or taking the translated text from somewhere else, you get the same result, I'd think.

(Also, it's been way too long since I've last had biltong. That stuff is expensive. And as we've previously established, there is too much month at the end of my money at the moment.)



Malik said:


> True, but those aren't nearly enough details to write a book with. I mean, unless you wanted to use the same five or six details in every scene. There are a thousand other details buried in the experiences that gave me those few details off the top of my head.



Agreed. But my point here is that I can get the details by experiencing it, or by asking you, or reading stuff on your site. Ergo, if I need more details, you can hypothetically give me more of them, because you have access to them from your experience.


----------



## Malik

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> There's a page on TVTropes about "truths" in fiction that are completely unrealistic, but are generally accepted by audiences as realistic because they're so commonly used. In these cases, if X was actually depicted realistically, the audience would be bewildered.



I fired an editor over this. He said my book would "confuse everybody" unless I rewrote it with expected inaccuracies. He wanted a total rewrite anyway; he wanted me to turn it into a YA Coming of Age thing with a boy who finds a magic sword that makes him a master swordsman in another world. But I needed to take out the confusing stuff, too. 

He marked up the whole manuscript with *NO, REMOVE, *and *TAKE THIS OUT* all over it in the sidebar, stuff highlighted on damned near every page. Mostly the stuff that I'd spent my life researching. I'm not talking about taking out info-dumps; I'm talking about rewriting it with magic swords slicing through plate steel and horses that apparently never founder or have to eat.

My wife says that when I opened the Track Changes bar I dropped more F-bombs than Tony Montana falling down the stairs.

The research stays.


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

Malik said:


> I fired an editor over this. He said my book would "confuse everybody" unless I rewrote it with expected inaccuracies. He wanted a total rewrite anyway; he wanted me to turn it into a YA Coming of Age thing with a boy who finds a magic sword that makes him a master swordsman in another world. But I needed to take out the confusing stuff, too.
> 
> He marked up the whole manuscript with *NO, REMOVE, *and *TAKE THIS OUT* all over it in the sidebar, stuff highlighted on damned near every page. Mostly the stuff that I'd spent my life researching. I'm not talking about taking out info-dumps; I'm talking about rewriting it with magic swords slicing through plate steel and horses that apparently never founder or have to eat.
> 
> My wife says that when I opened the Track Changes bar I dropped more F-bombs than Tony Montana falling down the stairs.
> 
> The research stays.



O_O I'd have fired that sucker too...


----------



## ThinkerX

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I suppose the idea that drives me bonkers is that now is "just practice" and the serious stuff won't come until much later.
> 
> I guess it's all my inner whiny teenager coming out, "but I want to do it NOOOOOWWWWW...." Childish? Yeah. Immature? Yeah. Should I just suck it up? Probably...
> 
> My ideas are very important to me, though. Having to put them off for 10-20 years is a hopefully understandably frustrating idea. Of course I want to feel like what I'm writing now is worth something and important. Classic motivation of youth but for me, powerful. My current WIP is a side project to distract from the one I was working on, but ten years of side projects will get annoying. I get too attached to my favorite ideas, I know. The whole golden idea thing. Should I...? I just don't know.
> 
> I should stop complaining by now, I'm probably driving y'all crazy. Nonetheless I'm having a crippling emotional crisis.



Opportunities for knowledge and inspiration are all around you, even now.  You just have to adjust your perspective a bit.

Again, from my experience, more or less continued from my youth:

I grew up on the homestead.  I built the house twenty miles to the south, on the outskirts of a small city (probably small town to most of you, or maybe village.)  Half a mile west of me is bluff that drops 80-90 feet into Cook Inlet.  South is an interconnected string of subdivisions with paved streets that eventually becomes a realm of malls, fast food joints, and the like.  In the summer, I try to bike that distance every couple of weeks.  North is a strung out collection of rural subdivisions, dirt or gravel streets, mixed in with the occasional machine shop or light industrial site.    East...a few houses and roads to start with (along with a prison).  Then dirt roads going nowhere.  And after that, trees.  Lots and lots of trees, with the occasional stretch of muskeg (former lakebed) thrown in.  

Up to about six or eight years ago, I walked the decaying roads and trails through the area, sometimes a mile, sometimes several.  My favorites included a long dirt road along the bluffs, and some of the trails eastward.  Found a crashed remote control model airplane out there once.  Scoped out 'Building 100,' a relic from the military days that was completely covered in graffiti that ranged from 'almost interesting' to 'somewhat obscene.'  Kind of interesting to wander around such places.  Then a subdivision got planted on the one road, and the other got gated.  

So I started riding the bicycle, sticking mostly to the paved streets.  Two or three loops around the subdivisions perimeter, about 1.5 miles per loop.  Paid attention to the people I saw.  Kids playing softball on a 'field' that includes part of the street and the front yards of two apartment buildings.  Other kids playing hoops.  Teenage couple necking on their porch.  The guy trying to rebuild his junker car that's parked in the street.  The perpetually feuding couple (squad cars every couple of weeks.)  And so on.  Point is, each of those encounters is either a story seed, or something that could be used in a story.  This, in a fairly normal subdivision.

Can take a grimmer tone, too.  Couple years ago, a couple in one of the apartment buildings on my circuit went missing, along with their toddlers.  I'd see the kids, at least, once in a while on my rounds.  I participated a bit in the search for them - in my wanderings, I'd found almost utterly forgotten places.  Alas, the search was in vain, and the truth of that situation was revealed to be both much uglier and depressing than first thought. (MS).  But I did learn a bit about the search procedures.


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

To La Volpe (I hope I haven't misunderstood your posts because they're long): Firsthand experience totally can provide perspective just hearing someone describe something can't. 

I think of like the telephone game. In telephone, the more people the message passes through, the more it gets distorted. 

In the getting-hit-on-the-head example: if you were to get hit on the head like so and describe it, you would be directly transcribing your perception of the experience to the paper. The only mind it would have to pass through and be processed by is your own. But if you wrote about it by going on what Malik said it was like, you'd be farther away from the reality of the experience. You wouldn't have all the possible details because you heard Malik tell it, you didn't experience it for yourself. You wouldn't be processing your own perception of the experience to put to paper, you would be processing his description of the experience. You're much farther away. 

The people on this forum are writers. Many people you might glean information from are not. Meaning they don't have the same ability to describe and articulate things. That compounds the difficulty. 

But there are ways to circumvent the problem. You can draw information from lots of different sources to give a more complete picture. You can combine testimony with similar experiences you've had. 

Anyway, all you really have to do is make your reader believe in it. 

So, personal experience can be super helpful. But there are ways to get by as well without it.


----------



## skip.knox

@DotA, I'm no help at all with emotional crises, but I can tell you this much: more than one famous author was writing at your age. This includes Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. There are others. So no, you do not necessarily have to put on more miles before you can be a "serious" writer.


----------



## skip.knox

DotA's latest post (hope you don't mind being abbreviated!) gave me a clue as to why I keep being bugged on this thread even though I fundamentally agree with most of the points. It's that bit about firsthand experience providing perspective.

Yes it does. It provides *a* perspective. Just one. The part that bugs me is the assumption that the perspective is closer to some truth. It is closer to the experience of the person experiencing. That's pretty much it. And it can be as skewed as any other.

The parallel that struck me is with eyewitness accounts. Everyone knows about this, right? Eyewitness accounts--the same people experiencing the same thing at the same time--can vary in surprising ways. As a historian I deal with this all the time. One of my jobs is to weave a coherent account out of the various sources available. My account is its own interpretation, its own truth, which is taken by my readers (all sixteen of them) where it morphs still further. Other historians write their own accounts. But it would be a mistake to say that the account from the primary sources is closer to some absolute truth than is a modern account, simply by virtue of being closer in time and space to the event.

So it is with experiential research. It's not really closer to the real thing. It brings *that* researcher closer to *that* event. It provides *a* perspective, and the writer will use that to write *a* story. Another writer will draw on other sources and will write a different story.

And I certainly would not say (looking at you, DotA) that one needs to wait to experience things before one starts writing about them. Start writing now!  Right now! Stop reading my ridiculously long post! Go write!


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

ThinkerX said:


> Opportunities for knowledge and inspiration are all around you, even now.  You just have to adjust your perspective a bit.
> 
> Again, from my experience, more or less continued from my youth:
> 
> I grew up on the homestead.  I built the house twenty miles to the south, on the outskirts of a small city (probably small town to most of you, or maybe village.)  Half a mile west of me is bluff that drops 80-90 feet into Cook Inlet.  South is an interconnected string of subdivisions with paved streets that eventually becomes a realm of malls, fast food joints, and the like.  In the summer, I try to bike that distance every couple of weeks.  North is a strung out collection of rural subdivisions, dirt or gravel streets, mixed in with the occasional machine shop or light industrial site.    East...a few houses and roads to start with (along with a prison).  Then dirt roads going nowhere.  And after that, trees.  Lots and lots of trees, with the occasional stretch of muskeg (former lakebed) thrown in.
> 
> Up to about six or eight years ago, I walked the decaying roads and trails through the area, sometimes a mile, sometimes several.  My favorites included a long dirt road along the bluffs, and some of the trails eastward.  Found a crashed remote control model airplane out there once.  Scoped out 'Building 100,' a relic from the military days that was completely covered in graffiti that ranged from 'almost interesting' to 'somewhat obscene.'  Kind of interesting to wander around such places.  Then a subdivision got planted on the one road, and the other got gated.
> 
> So I started riding the bicycle, sticking mostly to the paved streets.  Two or three loops around the subdivisions perimeter, about 1.5 miles per loop.  Paid attention to the people I saw.  Kids playing softball on a 'field' that includes part of the street and the front yards of two apartment buildings.  Other kids playing hoops.  Teenage couple necking on their porch.  The guy trying to rebuild his junker car that's parked in the street.  The perpetually feuding couple (squad cars every couple of weeks.)  And so on.  Point is, each of those encounters is either a story seed, or something that could be used in a story.  This, in a fairly normal subdivision.
> 
> Can take a grimmer tone, too.  Couple years ago, a couple in one of the apartment buildings on my circuit went missing, along with their toddlers.  I'd see the kids, at least, once in a while on my rounds.  I participated a bit in the search for them - in my wanderings, I'd found almost utterly forgotten places.  Alas, the search was in vain, and the truth of that situation was revealed to be both much uglier and depressing than first thought. (MS).  But I did learn a bit about the search procedures.



Sounds like a really interesting place to grow up and live. 

I'm thinking of my own experiences, things I can maybe turn into story fodder...

1. Everyone I know is eccentric. I literally don't know a single normal person. I'm thinking of my loopy art teacher telling of his time working in a donut factory, or the time his daughters threw him a colonoscopy party... I could tell so many stories. My friends are odd, colorful people who don't fall into any categories. People are so strange. I write everything down, weird things I hear people say, the stories they tell. Because you can't make any of it up. 

2. I've owned lots of cats. I am a cat person. I've seen them give birth, I've raised kittens up from a bottle. I could tell you literally anything about cats. That's why giving dragons behavioral traits similar to cats' is a smart idea for me...

3. Being homeschooled. This is a big one because I can't think of a single book that depicts it accurately. It's always either a borderline cult or some kid has a deathly health problem and has to be sadly homeschooled and isolated from reality. Believe it or not, there are actually parents who do it just because they think they can educate their children better than the public schools can. (Like my own.) 

4. Living with an anxiety disorder. Panic attacks, or, almost worse, the vague feeling of impending doom stalking you. I know how it feels, I know what it's like, I know the symptoms. I know about feeling like your brain is a prison trying to suffocate you. Unfortunately.  

5. I've done quite a bit of gardening. It all died, but still. 

Despite thinking of myself as being a suburb dweller, I probably know a lot more about the outdoors than a lot of people...I've lived in many rather rural areas. 

I guess I could tell you quite a bit about my part of the country since I've lived here my whole life. But I don't know if I'll ever set a story here. Onwards...

6. Have been to dozens of churches, have been a preacher's kid even. I know about the power structures within. I know the good people churches contain, and the good people they screw over. Growing up Christian has given me insight into the Christian subculture. 

Does any of this help me in a fantasy novel? I don't know...

7. Places I've been. Caves and waterfalls I've visited, trails I've hiked, farms I've played on, old houses I've lived in, thickets woods I've waded through, beaches I've vacationed at. Abandoned houses and buildings...I live near a river, so there are so many that flooded long ago and were never torn down...I've passed by some of them hundreds of times and wanted to explore each time. Have never gotten the opportunity though...

All the places I've been to have had such an impact on me. My dreams are always about settings. 

8. I've only been taking Krav Maga for a few weeks, but I feel that soon it might be something to draw from. 

9. Ok, I've never been in a relationship, but I have fallen hard for someone, and I've had my heart broken. Laugh all you want but it's something I know. 

10. Miscellaneous: getting one's feet absolutely shredded to pieces after tangling them in thorns wearing sandals. Sinking in mud past your ankles and getting stuck, getting a shoe sucked right off your foot by mud. The smell of blood. The feeling of always being alone and misunderstood. Floating on one's back in a warm pool at dusk, watching the bats swoop about as the first stars come out. How exhausting clambering through deep snow is, almost like wading through water, how hard it is to catch your breath in the cold. Looking at the clouds...I gain so much inspiration from clouds. They are a source of unending inspiration. All the funerals I've been to, the sounds of utter grief and the solemn, churchy smell. Waking up in the middle of the night in a fierce thunderstorm, just as a bolt of lightning hits, shaking the house with a noise like a mountain splitting. Grooming a horse. Getting climbed on by a goat. That clenching feeling of dread before a punishment. Coming home to find a litter of kittens on your back porch mauled to death by the neighbor's dog and being so angry, at the universe, at dogs everywhere, wanting someone to pay, anyone. Finding a baby bird dying on the back patio and wanting to put it out of its misery but not knowing how, so just waiting for it to die...ugh, horrible. Making friends, fighting with them, keeping it together anyway. The feeling of pure exhilaration when you're driving down the road at night with your friends, singing at the top of your lungs to "Don't Stop Believing." Waking up from a nightmare and not wanting to go back to sleep. Midnight snacks. Growing up with brothers. Hating them half the time but being ready to beat the crap out of anyone who lays a hand on them. Frantic apologizing when you hit them a little *too* hard. Just memories I have, things I know. Just a few of them. Mostly normal things. 

No really special things, but that's the point. The more I consider it, the less I think it's about experiencing and the more I think it's about remembering and processing and utilizing your experiences. My experiences are kind of mundane, but I could use them to inject depth into my stories nonetheless. I think you can gain a lot if you just keep your mind and senses open. Remember everything. I have lived in a constant state of "How can I use this in a story?" for several years now. I don't think I'm the worse for it. It's easy to let all your seemingly useless memories sluice into the background, but I try to hold onto things. I think that makes all the difference in the world. 

And it's always the worst, the strangest, the most shocking, the happiest, the most painful, the most infuriating, the most embarrassing, the most exhilarating, the most beautiful...that's what will help you most. 

One last thing: Personal research vs. impersonal. Pure information is just information. If you can hear something right out of a person's mouth, hear it the way they tell it, it will be so much more helpful. If you talk to someone, you'll hear a story rather than facts. You'll get the emotion, the humanity of every experience. That's why other people are the next best source other than yourself.

This post went way off topic. It's 2 A.M. I'm so tired. My brain is not working.


----------



## Reaver

skip.knox said:


> @DotA, I'm no help at all with emotional crises, but I can tell you this much: more than one famous author was writing at your age. This includes Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury. There are others. So no, you do not necessarily have to put on more miles before you can be a "serious" writer.



Let's not forget Christopher Paolini. I'm certain he was even younger than DotA when he started writing Eragon.


----------



## Russ

skip.knox said:


> DotA's latest post (hope you don't mind being abbreviated!) gave me a clue as to why I keep being bugged on this thread even though I fundamentally agree with most of the points. It's that bit about firsthand experience providing perspective.
> 
> Yes it does. It provides *a* perspective. Just one. The part that bugs me is the assumption that the perspective is closer to some truth. It is closer to the experience of the person experiencing. That's pretty much it. And it can be as skewed as any other.
> 
> The parallel that struck me is with eyewitness accounts. Everyone knows about this, right? Eyewitness accounts--the same people experiencing the same thing at the same time--can vary in surprising ways. As a historian I deal with this all the time. One of my jobs is to weave a coherent account out of the various sources available. My account is its own interpretation, its own truth, which is taken by my readers (all sixteen of them) where it morphs still further. Other historians write their own accounts. But it would be a mistake to say that the account from the primary sources is closer to some absolute truth than is a modern account, simply by virtue of being closer in time and space to the event.
> 
> So it is with experiential research. It's not really closer to the real thing. It brings *that* researcher closer to *that* event. It provides *a* perspective, and the writer will use that to write *a* story. Another writer will draw on other sources and will write a different story.
> 
> And I certainly would not say (looking at you, DotA) that one needs to wait to experience things before one starts writing about them. Start writing now!  Right now! Stop reading my ridiculously long post! Go write!



To pick up on your historian's analogy...I would suggest experiential research is a lot like working with primary sources.  Sure they can be biased and inaccurate but they offer some value that secondary sources cannot.

I don't think there is any doubt that experience is not universal or that experience does not offer access to some universal truths.  But it is your experience and is authentic.  I think DOA articulated quite well how getting information through one or more sets of filters can water down that experience.

And if you are relating, as well as you are able, your own unfiltered experiences, you are offering something to your readers that is  uniquely yours, not just something you borrowed from someone else.


----------



## Russ

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> And it's always the worst, the strangest, the most shocking, the happiest, the most painful, the most infuriating, the most embarrassing, the most exhilarating, the most beautiful...that's what will help you most.
> 
> One last thing: Personal research vs. impersonal. Pure information is just information. If you can hear something right out of a person's mouth, hear it the way they tell it, it will be so much more helpful. If you talk to someone, you'll hear a story rather than facts. You'll get the emotion, the humanity of every experience. That's why other people are the next best source other than yourself.



You seem very energetic for a 65 year old


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## Russ

Reaver said:


> Let's not forget Christopher Paolini. I'm certain he was even younger than DotA when he started writing Eragon.




The great fantasist Michael Moorcock was making his living writing fiction at age 17 IIRC.  He also wrote Tarzan stories long before he ever visited Africa.


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## Black Dragon

*PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT*

Mythic Scribes is a community comprised of writers with different perspectives and goals

Please remember that these and other differences are  welcome at Mythic Scribes.  What unites us is a shared love for the  craft of writing, and we can't lose sight of that.

Therefore, it is imperative that everyone treat one another with mutual  respect.  Please refrain from arguing, and instead focus on helping one  another to grow and improve.  If you must disagree with someone, do so  with respect and tact.

Also, be aware that the forum rules prohibit "argumentative or hostile behavior."  Going forward, this prohibition will be strictly enforced.

Finally, do not forget the Guiding Principle upon which Mythic Scribes is built:

*Treat others with respect and dignity, and foster a positive, welcoming and family friendly community.*

Thank you for doing your part in keeping Mythic Scribes a beacon of light in the sea of hostility that is the internet.


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## SeverinR

We are all offering our views on how to improve on writing.  What works for some won't work for others.  What works for some might not work for anyone else.   
For every "rule" someone offers, someone else has succeeded while breaking that rule.

We have published authors, we have people that have made good money from their work. But we are all still just giving opinions.  No one should offer an opinion as if it is gospel,  and no one should feel attacked for offering an opinion.

Even the successful published author succeeded his/her way and doesn't mean that will work for everyone, or maybe won't work for anyone else.

Basically, I'm saying we're all equals in this forum. We're all here to learn or improve ourselves and help others see from a different perspective.  
Also we are all human and don't say things perfectly. My OP was not meant to say "Living the research" was the only way. I do live as much as I can, not only for writing research but for the experience too.  I won't jump out of a mechanically sound airplane, so I won't live the research of a free fall or how it feels to ride a parachute down.  

Can you write without living it? Yes. Can you do it well? Probably.  Can you add something to your story if you lived it? Probably.

I will say it again, Please try to encourage and inspire people with your posts here, offer a special perspective on a subject. That is what makes this site great.


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## KBA

Some real life experiences can be toned down to save time and money for those who don't have the budget yet. At least they create material for detail that can include all the senses. - An authentic Chinese restaurant owned by a Chinese family rather than traveling to China (no, not home delivered take-out Chinese). The scents, the flavors, the inflection and mannerisms of the family.   - Videos on horse care including diseases and training, then visiting a county fair to see horses up close including aromas, bugs flying around the manure, their snorts, the feel of the muscle under the rough or sleek coat, the soulful eye contact.   - Six Flags Nitro ride to feel the brief sensation of being weightless, or other rides to at least experience being closed up into a small container that goes from motionless to high speed within seconds.


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## CupofJoe

KBA said:


> Some real life experiences can be toned down to save time and money for those who don't have the budget yet. At least they create material for detail that can include all the senses. - An authentic Chinese restaurant owned by a Chinese family rather than traveling to China (no, not home delivered take-out Chinese). The scents, the flavors, the inflection and mannerisms of the family.   - Videos on horse care including diseases and training, then visiting a county fair to see horses up close including aromas, bugs flying around the manure, their snorts, the feel of the muscle under the rough or sleek coat, the soulful eye contact.   - Six Flags Nitro ride to feel the brief sensation of being weightless, or other rides to at least experience being closed up into a small container that goes from motionless to high speed within seconds.


I sort of agree with this [being of limited means myself]... Extrapolate and Imagine!!!


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## SeverinR

KBA said:


> Some real life experiences can be toned down to save time and money for those who don't have the budget yet. At least they create material for detail that can include all the senses. - An authentic Chinese restaurant owned by a Chinese family rather than traveling to China (no, not home delivered take-out Chinese). The scents, the flavors, the inflection and mannerisms of the family.   - Videos on horse care including diseases and training, then visiting a county fair to see horses up close including aromas, bugs flying around the manure, their snorts, the feel of the muscle under the rough or sleek coat, the soulful eye contact.   - Six Flags Nitro ride to feel the brief sensation of being weightless, or other rides to at least experience being closed up into a small container that goes from motionless to high speed within seconds.


Also you can see what needs to be done and time it takes to care for a horse or livestock. See the interaction of horse and person, good and bad.  
Exactly, finding ways to experience what our characters lived.  It will add spice and reduce the chance for a "basic" error of nature.


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## C. A. Stanley

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> What do I have knowledge of? Panic attacks. Social anxiety. Umm...I've watched a cat give birth. (More than once.) I've *tried* to climb a tree. I haven't been on a horse since I was 8... I love the outdoors, but I've never really had an outdoors to love.
> 
> Pathetic, aren't I?



Nothing pathetic about that, Dragon. I recommend you use those feelings in your writing. Most people have anxiety, of varying degrees, so it's highly likely your characters will too. I've never read about a protagonist who suffers from panic attacks, but it would certainly provide good conflict and realism - a big fight scene is coming up, and your MC doubles over, can't breath, and feels like they're dying before the fight has even begun? Does a friend help see them through it--so they can continue on and fight the battle, admittedly weakened--or tell them to sit this one out? Does a character with social anxiety suddenly find themselves forced to engage in political affairs, surrounded by vapid, judgemental elites?

I suffer from anxiety / depression myself, and my persistent full-body pain means I'm too scared to get out and do things, so I use my imagination and empathy (and a lot of research!) to generate ideas and create detail. Physically doing something is almost always going to be the best way to understand it, but it's not the only way. I've never been to a desert, but I've been on a beach, and can extrapolate from that aha  Obviously technical things are going to be more complicated (swordplay etc), but the mind is an incredibly powerful thing, and given the right information, can figure these things out just enough to make somebody believe you know what you're talking about.


----------



## Malik

Malik said:


> My dream has always been to create a high fantasy series so detailed and so believable that one day a fan would put a gun to my head demanding that I give them the location of the portal to it. That has been the guiding principle in all of this since I was about DOTA's age.



About three weeks after I wrote this, I received the first of what has become a concerning raft of emails and messages suggesting that the world where my series happens is real. The common thread in these messages has been that there's no way I could know so much about all this unless I've been there. 

One reader sends me these long, Dr. Bronner-esque emails, absolutely convinced that I was part of a Black Ops program guarding a magic portal -- he's gonna lose his freaking mind when I get to Book IV and 



Spoiler: SERIOUSLY, MAJOR GODDAMN SPOILER



introduce an ex-Green Beret-turned-stuntman associate of the MC to help him run a counterterrorism operation.


Another reader tells me that the descriptions of the elves in my novel align exactly with one of her past-life regressions. She's really nice about it, though, and thinks that I'm remembering all this from a past life, myself. She has this whole thing about how what we create in this world is based on spiritual memory from alternate realities and past lives, and that's all fine by me. A third keeps sending me pictures of his armor and sword and assures me he's ready to go. I'm not so sure he is; he doesn't look like he could keep up with me in the field, and his sword has wings on it.

A couple of others -- messages and reviews -- have been much more subtle, mentioning how real the world feels, and how it reads like I've been there myself. And then, a few weeks ago, I found myself in an increasingly weird conversation with a guy at Norwescon who I really hope was high as shit and kept pressing me on the mechanics of how the characters got back and forth between worlds. I finally broke contact when he started asking how my sword got its patina and all those dings.

At first, I was sure I was being trolled, but at this point, if I am, then it's by a well-organized and dedicated group. I have come to the conclusion that there's a subset of fantasy readers who are just flat-out nuts.

I brought this on myself. As I've discussed on these boards, I took deliberate pains and used a lot of narrative tricks to make the book seem hyper-realistic, past the research and the intentional demolition of expected inaccuracies. The big thing is, I wrote it in omniscient third, crafting a narrator who's constantly dropping hints that he's been there and knows the characters, but who never drops into first person. The narrator just knows all this stuff. It reads like a memoir, like someone's sitting in your living room with a drink in his hand telling you all this. Nobody writes in omniscient third anymore, so this might have taken some people by surprise, and some readers who don't know any better might even construe it as a first-person account.

It's all a trick. All of it. It's sawing a woman in half onstage. Flowers out of a handkerchief. But coupled with the amount of research I put in, I appear to have exactly pulled it off. And as of this week, _Dragon's Trail_ is an international bestseller, so I'm preparing for a whole new deluge of weird.


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

Malik said:


> About three weeks after I wrote this, I received the first of what has become a concerning raft of emails and messages suggesting that the world where my series happens is real. The common thread in these messages has been that there's no way I could know so much about all this unless I've been there.
> 
> One reader sends me these long, Dr. Bronner-esque emails, absolutely convinced that I was part of a Black Ops program guarding a magic portal -- he's gonna lose his freaking mind when I get to Book IV and
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler: SERIOUSLY, MAJOR GODDAMN SPOILER
> 
> 
> 
> introduce an ex-Green Beret-turned-stuntman associate of the MC to help him run a counterterrorism operation.
> 
> 
> Another reader tells me that the descriptions of the elves in my novel align exactly with one of her past-life regressions. She's really nice about it, though, and thinks that I'm remembering all this from a past life, myself. She has this whole thing about how what we create in this world is based on spiritual memory from alternate realities and past lives, and that's all fine by me. A third keeps sending me pictures of his armor and sword and assures me he's ready to go. I'm not so sure he is; he doesn't look like he could keep up with me in the field, and his sword has wings on it.
> 
> A couple of others -- messages and reviews -- have been much more subtle, mentioning how real the world feels, and how it reads like I've been there myself. And then, a few weeks ago, I found myself in an increasingly weird conversation with a guy at Norwescon who I really hope was high as shit and kept pressing me on the mechanics of how the characters got back and forth between worlds. I finally broke contact when he started asking how my sword got its patina and all those dings.
> 
> At first, I was sure I was being trolled, but at this point, if I am, then it's by a well-organized and dedicated group. I have come to the conclusion that there's a subset of fantasy readers who are just flat-out nuts.
> 
> I brought this on myself. As I've discussed on these boards, I took deliberate pains and used a lot of narrative tricks to make the book seem hyper-realistic, past the research and the intentional demolition of expected inaccuracies. The big thing is, I wrote it in omniscient third, crafting a narrator who's constantly dropping hints that he's been there and knows the characters, but who never drops into first person. The narrator just knows all this stuff. It reads like a memoir, like someone's sitting in your living room with a drink in his hand telling you all this. Nobody writes in omniscient third anymore, so this might have taken some people by surprise, and some readers who don't know any better might even construe it as a first-person account.
> 
> It's all a trick. All of it. It's sawing a woman in half onstage. Flowers out of a handkerchief. But coupled with the amount of research I put in, I appear to have exactly pulled it off. And as of this week, _Dragon's Trail_ is an international bestseller, so I'm preparing for a whole new deluge of weird.



I know it must be kinda perplexing and annoying from your point of view but this to me is hilarious. 

And yes plenty of fantasy nerds are probably flat out nuts.


----------



## skip.knox

At least some folks already know this, but it's fairly cool. When Tom Clancy wrote _The Hunt for Red October_ back in 1984, it was a huge hit. (It was also his first novel, which should thoroughly depress all of us)

The novel was so accurate, some people in the intelligence community thought he must have insider information and openly accused him of revealing secrets. In fact, everything he wrote about was available to the public. He simply did really good research. The original publisher of the book, in fact, was the U.S. Naval Institute.

Anyway, he didn't have to go on submarines, but he did have to do his research. Personal experience is great, but even that is useful only when approach as another piece of research. It has to be processed through the novelist's eyes and ears. And heart.


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## C. A. Stanley

Malik said:


> And as of this week, _Dragon's Trail_ is an international bestseller, so I'm preparing for a whole new deluge of weird.


I started reading this yesterday. Half the time I have no idea what you're talking about. In a good way. Your knowledge of all-things-sword is both refreshing and inspiring.



Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk


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## Malik

C. A. Stanley said:


> I started reading this yesterday. Half the time I have no idea what you're talking about. In a good way. Your knowledge of all-things-sword is both refreshing and inspiring.



Thank you. 

A couple of reviewers have noted that they enjoyed it more on the second read once they had a handle on the technical stuff. Enjoy.

- JM


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## Nomadica

Malik said:


> About three weeks after I wrote this, I received the first of what has become a concerning raft of emails and messages suggesting that the world where my series happens is real. The common thread in these messages has been that there's no way I could know so much about all this unless I've been there.
> 
> One reader sends me these long, Dr. Bronner-esque emails, absolutely convinced that I was part of a Black Ops program guarding a magic portal -- he's gonna lose his freaking mind when I get to Book IV and
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler: SERIOUSLY, MAJOR GODDAMN SPOILER
> 
> 
> 
> introduce an ex-Green Beret-turned-stuntman associate of the MC to help him run a counterterrorism operation.
> 
> 
> Another reader tells me that the descriptions of the elves in my novel align exactly with one of her past-life regressions. She's really nice about it, though, and thinks that I'm remembering all this from a past life, myself. She has this whole thing about how what we create in this world is based on spiritual memory from alternate realities and past lives, and that's all fine by me. A third keeps sending me pictures of his armor and sword and assures me he's ready to go. I'm not so sure he is; he doesn't look like he could keep up with me in the field, and his sword has wings on it.
> 
> A couple of others -- messages and reviews -- have been much more subtle, mentioning how real the world feels, and how it reads like I've been there myself. And then, a few weeks ago, I found myself in an increasingly weird conversation with a guy at Norwescon who I really hope was high as shit and kept pressing me on the mechanics of how the characters got back and forth between worlds. I finally broke contact when he started asking how my sword got its patina and all those dings.
> 
> At first, I was sure I was being trolled, but at this point, if I am, then it's by a well-organized and dedicated group. I have come to the conclusion that there's a subset of fantasy readers who are just flat-out nuts.
> 
> I brought this on myself. As I've discussed on these boards, I took deliberate pains and used a lot of narrative tricks to make the book seem hyper-realistic, past the research and the intentional demolition of expected inaccuracies. The big thing is, I wrote it in omniscient third, crafting a narrator who's constantly dropping hints that he's been there and knows the characters, but who never drops into first person. The narrator just knows all this stuff. It reads like a memoir, like someone's sitting in your living room with a drink in his hand telling you all this. Nobody writes in omniscient third anymore, so this might have taken some people by surprise, and some readers who don't know any better might even construe it as a first-person account.
> 
> It's all a trick. All of it. It's sawing a woman in half onstage. Flowers out of a handkerchief. But coupled with the amount of research I put in, I appear to have exactly pulled it off. And as of this week, _Dragon's Trail_ is an international bestseller, so I'm preparing for a whole new deluge of weird.



Would it be wrong to mess with hem just a little bit? I mean you don't have to give them any straight answers right? >:}


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## Rkcapps

My 2 cents. My personal preference is with you JM. I personally can't experience anything at present. I'm wheelchair bound but I listen, as a teen I did martial arts, I've been knocked out cold. I also was fortunate enough to see the reenactment of the Battle of Hastings. Still I know it's not enough. 

I started my fantasy in my twenties. It has changed so much and may still. It's been a work of 20+ years and I feel I'm really just getting to know my characters now, through all the rewrites.

What I do know is I just started you book too and I've been searching for a fantasy book I can appreciate. I start so many but they don't hold my attention. I'm not engaged. You can't imagine my relief to start yours. This is the book I've searched for. Dare I say it, but for me, the proof is in the pudding.

But I firmly believe, each to their own.


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## C. A. Stanley

Malik said:


> Thank you.
> 
> A couple of reviewers have noted that they enjoyed it more on the second read once they had a handle on the technical stuff. Enjoy.
> 
> - JM



I am _really_ enjoying this book. Have you released anything else that I can read once I'm finished with this one? It's probably not right to intrude on the thread just for that, so...

From your writing, I can tell you have first-hand experience of combat, specifically with swords. This shows. I've always thought I could combine imagination with research, and come up with the goods; it's becoming evident that you cannot blag knowledge of an art form that has been present throughout human history! Even though a lot of the technicalities and jargon you use go right over my head, it all adds to the immersion factor. To begin with it was a little jarring, but that's more testament to my own ignorance than anything else.

By the end of the book I'll have a much better understanding of medieval weapons and armour, no doubt. A book that entertains _and_ educates is a fine thing.


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## Malik

Thank you so much. I don't have anything else that I've written, other than my blog at my website, below. 

I'm working on the sequel right now. I received orders last night to mobilize in June, so the next few weeks will be a sprint, writing 10-12 hours per day when I'm not making arrangements for care of the house, making out my will, etc. I'll be busy until October, so that's going to screw the whole timeline up. I hope to have at least a finished skeleton in a month that I can tweak on my off-time, and get it to my editor by September. 

You can do a lot by combining imagination with research -- you don't have to become an expert fencer to write a good fight scene -- but there's a lot to be said for going out and doing it a few times, or talking to someone who's done it, just to get the little things. It's the little things that sell it. There's a huge difference between knowing how something's done and how it feels to do it. Not just the physical sensation, but the emotional and mental processes behind the action having put the time in to learn it. And it's also the little follow-on things that you don't get from Google or YouTube that really sell the story. 

An obvious example is the fight outside Horlech and the after-care for the soldiers that results in -- well, you'll read it. I often read fights in fantasy novels that are brilliantly done, but then the heroes win the fight and then go off and do the next part of the adventure, and what; they just leave the badguys bleeding out and crying and shitting themselves? Seriously? You're just going to walk away from a dying man? You're gonna let this guy die alone and in pain, with nobody there to hold his hand, because he backed the wrong horse? Way to go, hero. You're really something. (There's a time and a place when a badguy has it coming, and you want to see the hero shatter his spine and leave him sputtering on the floor. That's not this.) 

Also, the cleaning of swords, the taking of inventory, the pulling off of helmets, and most of all, just sitting the **** down for a minute and drinking water and getting your head straight. I have never been in a fight of any kind and wanted to just go about whatever the hell it was I was doing beforehand like it never happened. Even if everything goes your way, you need a minute. These are the "been there, done that" details that you can get from sitting down with someone over a beer if you don't have the ability to do it yourself.

I'm extremely proud of a scene at the end when the MCs are armoring up in full harness. I could have gone into a 37-step description of locking each other into their armor piece by piece to show you how much I learned about armor for this book, but instead, I show them mid-process; one guy is jumping up and down to seat his pauldrons and the other is futzing about with a bootlace because his foot is going numb. I can give you a much better level of detail with those two vignettes than I ever could with a five-page infodump I built from watching a video of some yutz putting on armor.

The castle escape, though; I did that one in person. I wouldn't have missed the chance. "Oooh. Look what they're doing over there. Research!"


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## Malik

Nomadica said:


> Would it be wrong to mess with hem just a little bit? I mean you don't have to give them any straight answers right? >:}



You think I've given anybody a straight answer? I'm all about the mystique, here. 

Don't get me wrong; I haven't lied to anyone and I won't. I've just dropped breadcrumbs and let them get lost on their own.


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## C. A. Stanley

Malik said:


> I don't have anything else that I've written, other than my blog at my website, below.


That's my evening sorted then...



Malik said:


> I received orders last night to mobilize in June, so the next few weeks will be a sprint, writing 10-12 hours per day when I'm not making arrangements for care of the house, making out my will, etc. I'll be busy until October, so that's going to screw the whole timeline up. I hope to have at least a finished skeleton in a month that I can tweak on my off-time, and get it to my editor by September.


Be safe out there, brother.

I will wait patiently for the second instalment (I say that now, I may not be so patient once I finish Dragon's Trail and want to know what happens next aha).



Malik said:


> It's the little things that sell it. There's a huge difference between knowing how something's done and how it feels to do it. Not just the physical sensation, but the emotional and mental processes behind the action having put the time in to learn it. And it's also the little follow-on things that you don't get from Google or YouTube that really sell the story.
> ...
> I often read fights in fantasy novels that are brilliantly done, but then the heroes win the fight and then go off and do the next part of the adventure, and what; they just leave the badguys bleeding out and crying and shitting themselves? Seriously? You're just going to walk away from a dying man? You're gonna let this guy die alone and in pain, with nobody there to hold his hand, because he backed the wrong horse? Way to go, hero. You're really something. (There's a time and a place when a badguy has it coming, and you want to see the hero shatter his spine and leave him sputtering on the floor. That's not this.)
> 
> Also, the cleaning of swords, the taking of inventory, the pulling off of helmets, and most of all, just sitting the **** down for a minute and drinking water and getting your head straight. I have never been in a fight of any kind and wanted to just go about whatever the hell it was I was doing beforehand like it never happened. Even if everything goes your way, you need a minute. These are the "been there, done that" details that you can get from sitting down with someone over a beer if you don't have the ability to do it yourself.
> 
> I'm extremely proud of a scene at the end when the MCs are armoring up in full harness. I could have gone into a 37-step description of locking each other into their armor piece by piece to show you how much I learned about armor for this book, but instead, I show them mid-process; one guy is jumping up and down to seat his pauldrons and the other is futzing about with a bootlace because his foot is going numb. I can give you a much better level of detail with those two vignettes than I ever could with a five-page infodump I built from watching a video of some yutz putting on armor.


Real talk.

As much as a lot of people don't actually want to read about the grim realities of war, or the 'tedium' of pre-/post-combat, these are the things that make it _real_ (figuratively, of course, I'm not going to ask you where the portal to Falconsrealm is!). For me, reading is a way to experience things I will never experience in this life. To experience something fully, you need the good _and_ the bad. If you don't appreciate the time and effort taken to train and prepare, how can you fully appreciate the battle itself, and its rewards and/or consequences? How can you appreciate a character's _character_ if you don't see how they react to taking a life, almost losing their life, losing a friend, comforting a dying 'enemy'? As you mention, that sh*t is real, and important. Character building, literally.

If storytelling is about _people_, each scene has to show a characters humanity, or lack of. It needs to affect the character deeply in some way, not just leave them with a sore leg and a split lip. We are not only bodies, but bodies and minds.


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## C. A. Stanley

Malik said:


> I'm working on the sequel right now.


Btw, I just have to say, the fact I'm talking about this with *the guy who wrote the book I'm currently reading* is surreal. And awesome.

Mythic Scribes is so great


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## DragonOfTheAerie

Malik said:


> Thank you so much. I don't have anything else that I've written, other than my blog at my website, below.
> 
> I'm working on the sequel right now. I received orders last night to mobilize in June, so the next few weeks will be a sprint, writing 10-12 hours per day when I'm not making arrangements for care of the house, making out my will, etc. I'll be busy until October, so that's going to screw the whole timeline up. I hope to have at least a finished skeleton in a month that I can tweak on my off-time, and get it to my editor by September.
> 
> You can do a lot by combining imagination with research -- you don't have to become an expert fencer to write a good fight scene -- but there's a lot to be said for going out and doing it a few times, or talking to someone who's done it, just to get the little things. It's the little things that sell it. There's a huge difference between knowing how something's done and how it feels to do it. Not just the physical sensation, but the emotional and mental processes behind the action having put the time in to learn it. And it's also the little follow-on things that you don't get from Google or YouTube that really sell the story.
> 
> An obvious example is the fight outside Horlech and the after-care for the soldiers that results in -- well, you'll read it. I often read fights in fantasy novels that are brilliantly done, but then the heroes win the fight and then go off and do the next part of the adventure, and what; they just leave the badguys bleeding out and crying and shitting themselves? Seriously? You're just going to walk away from a dying man? You're gonna let this guy die alone and in pain, with nobody there to hold his hand, because he backed the wrong horse? Way to go, hero. You're really something. (There's a time and a place when a badguy has it coming, and you want to see the hero shatter his spine and leave him sputtering on the floor. That's not this.)
> 
> Also, the cleaning of swords, the taking of inventory, the pulling off of helmets, and most of all, just sitting the **** down for a minute and drinking water and getting your head straight. I have never been in a fight of any kind and wanted to just go about whatever the hell it was I was doing beforehand like it never happened. Even if everything goes your way, you need a minute. These are the "been there, done that" details that you can get from sitting down with someone over a beer if you don't have the ability to do it yourself.
> 
> I'm extremely proud of a scene at the end when the MCs are armoring up in full harness. I could have gone into a 37-step description of locking each other into their armor piece by piece to show you how much I learned about armor for this book, but instead, I show them mid-process; one guy is jumping up and down to seat his pauldrons and the other is futzing about with a bootlace because his foot is going numb. I can give you a much better level of detail with those two vignettes than I ever could with a five-page infodump I built from watching a video of some yutz putting on armor.
> 
> The castle escape, though; I did that one in person. I wouldn't have missed the chance. "Oooh. Look what they're doing over there. Research!"



I must say that I've been in martial arts for...what? Hmm, seven, eight months? And I already judge fight scenes in books I read. Last time I read one it kind of just hit me that "i've just impaired my ability to enjoy reading. Crud." 

I don't know how much I'm improving my own fight scenes, but I did get to overhear a well-told anecdote from one of my instructors about That Time A Guy Jumped Me which I have pressed into my mind for safekeeping.


----------



## DragonOfTheAerie

C. A. Stanley said:


> That's my evening sorted then...
> 
> 
> Be safe out there, brother.
> 
> I will wait patiently for the second instalment (I say that now, I may not be so patient once I finish Dragon's Trail and want to know what happens next aha).
> 
> 
> Real talk.
> 
> As much as a lot of people don't actually want to read about the grim realities of war, or the 'tedium' of pre-/post-combat, these are the things that make it _real_ (figuratively, of course, I'm not going to ask you where the portal to Falconsrealm is!). For me, reading is a way to experience things I will never experience in this life. To experience something fully, you need the good _and_ the bad. If you don't appreciate the time and effort taken to train and prepare, how can you fully appreciate the battle itself, and its rewards and/or consequences? How can you appreciate a character's _character_ if you don't see how they react to taking a life, almost losing their life, losing a friend, comforting a dying 'enemy'? As you mention, that sh*t is real, and important. Character building, literally.
> 
> If storytelling is about _people_, each scene has to show a characters humanity, or lack of. It needs to affect the character deeply in some way, not just leave them with a sore leg and a split lip. We are not only bodies, but bodies and minds.



One of the things that bothers me most is how 'heroes' in stories can straight up kill someone and not be mentally affected by it whatsoever. I know it's gotta be hard for a writer to get into the mind of someone who has just killed, hopefully having never done it themselves, but can you not just try? 

Closely tied with this is the heroes that have seen so much horrible crap, family members killed in front of them, gruesome killings, torture, etc, and not suffer from PTSD or any symptoms of trauma whatsoever. 

Or characters that have sustained tons and tons of grievous wounds after years of fighting and are never troubled by any past injuries. 

I could go on...


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## Aryth

I think you all make good points. Writing will be richer if drawn from personal experience, but it would be unreasonable to only write about things we have experienced first-hand. Lots of things we will have to make up as well, such as what having wings might feel like for a person or how it feels to use magic or have a spell cast upon you.


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## DragonOfTheAerie

Aryth said:


> I think you all make good points. Writing will be richer if drawn from personal experience, but it would be unreasonable to only write about things we have experienced first-hand. Lots of things we will have to make up as well, such as what having wings might feel like for a person or how it feels to use magic or have a spell cast upon you.



That's the fun of it, imagining those things that no one has experienced and making your reader experience them. But even then, having a real life analogy for what you're describing really helps.


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## C. A. Stanley

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> One of the things that bothers me most is how 'heroes' in stories can straight up kill someone and not be mentally affected by it whatsoever. I know it's gotta be hard for a writer to get into the mind of someone who has just killed, hopefully having never done it themselves, but can you not just try?
> 
> Closely tied with this is the heroes that have seen so much horrible crap, family members killed in front of them, gruesome killings, torture, etc, and not suffer from PTSD or any symptoms of trauma whatsoever.
> 
> Or characters that have sustained tons and tons of grievous wounds after years of fighting and are never troubled by any past injuries.
> 
> I could go on...


Yes to all of this.

I know how bad I feel if I just spill a drink on someone lol, so to take someone's life? I can only imagine it is the _worst_ feeling, even if this person did rape you sister, kill your mother etc...

In my opinion, PTSD should be rife in the fantasy genre. As you say, killing people, seeing people killed, being tortured etc. would, for most people, lead to some form of mental illness. And an MC is likely to be right in the middle of whatever sh*tstorm is driving the plot, and so should be more susceptible than most.

Malik mentioned earlier, even if you win a fight, you need time to recover. You don't just bandage up a grievous wound and continue on your way. And that grievous wound certainly doesn't disappear before the next challenge. And if that grievous wound doesn't play a part, why bother putting it in there?

Back on topic, I fully appreciate the benefit of first-hand experience, and am so jealous that a lot of you seem to have martial arts training! Given my current medical circumstances it's not possible for me, but hopefully one day   DOTA, did I read somewhere it's Krav Maga you do?

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk


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## Russ

So pleased to see this vital topic back up and going again.

I have been fighting with medieval weapons in and out of armour for years.  All real steel and I find the experience invaluable.  I really do need to get Malik's book and read it now.  He is a cool guy and I bet his writing is very strong and enjoyable.  I just have to make the time.

Anyways, I thought I should chime in on the question of how people react to killing others.  Our modern society is very divorced from death.  Older societies were much closer to death with people encountering it much closer up, even at a young age.  Now while a few trendy shrinks are trying to figure out whether historical soldiers suffered from PTSD, historians went down the road years ago of trying to apply modern psych terms to  historical figures and have rejected the approach.

The simple fact is that people in different time periods and in different cultures were fundamentally different that modern folks in their psychology and worldview.   So even if you take the time to read a great book like _On Killing_  you have to realize most of the information in it is useless in understanding the pre-civil war soldier or the medieval knight.

If you are curious about this phenomena you might want to read the classic work _Shrinking History_ or if you don't want to dive that deeply you could read the appropriate chapter in the writing book _Many Genres One Craft_, for a overview of the importance of this topic to the writer.


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## DragonOfTheAerie

C. A. Stanley said:


> Yes to all of this.
> 
> I know how bad I feel if I just spill a drink on someone lol, so to take someone's life? I can only imagine it is the _worst_ feeling, even if this person did rape you sister, kill your mother etc...
> 
> In my opinion, PTSD should be rife in the fantasy genre. As you say, killing people, seeing people killed, being tortured etc. would, for most people, lead to some form of mental illness. And an MC is likely to be right in the middle of whatever sh*tstorm is driving the plot, and so should be more susceptible than most.
> 
> Malik mentioned earlier, even if you win a fight, you need time to recover. You don't just bandage up a grievous wound and continue on your way. And that grievous wound certainly doesn't disappear before the next challenge. And if that grievous wound doesn't play a part, why bother putting it in there?
> 
> Back on topic, I fully appreciate the benefit of first-hand experience, and am so jealous that a lot of you seem to have martial arts training! Given my current medical circumstances it's not possible for me, but hopefully one day   DOTA, did I read somewhere it's Krav Maga you do?
> 
> Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk



Yup, Krav Maga.


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## C. A. Stanley

Russ said:


> I have been fighting with medieval weapons in and out of armour for years. All real steel and I find the experience invaluable. I really do need to get Malik's book and read it now.  He is a cool guy and I bet his writing is very strong and enjoyable.  I just have to make the time.


From what I know of him (from his profile etc.) he does seem like a really cool guy. Very experienced and _world-wise_ (I can't think of a better way to describe it), the kinda guy who would have his own action figure aha. You should definitely read his book if you get a chance. It's a really fun, original concept, imo. I'm glad I bought it; I'm about half-way through, and already I don't want it to end! The way his experience shows through in the writing is really refreshing, and as I mentioned to him earlier in this thread, I'm finding it all rather educational. It's not something I'd ever considered before now, but reading it is making me want to get involved in EMMA myself. I wonder if it's just my love of the sword and sorcery genre, or an inherent, _primal_ human instinct to want to swing a sword?



Russ said:


> Anyways, I thought I should chime in on the question of how people react to killing others.  Our modern society is very divorced from death.  Older societies were much closer to death with people encountering it much closer up, even at a young age.  Now while a few trendy shrinks are trying to figure out whether historical soldiers suffered from PTSD, historians went down the road years ago of trying to apply modern psych terms to  historical figures and have rejected the approach.
> 
> The simple fact is that people in different time periods and in different cultures were fundamentally different that modern folks in their psychology and worldview.   So even if you take the time to read a great book like _On Killing_  you have to realize most of the information in it is useless in understanding the pre-civil war soldier or the medieval knight.


This is a great point, and one we, certainly I, had overlooked.

I am fortunate enough to have never seen anyone die, or come close to death myself. In today's society, with Health & Safety in the workplace, advanced medical technologies, etc. death is _intangible_. By that, I mean it's something we think about from time to time, but don't really grasp. The "it won't happen to me" attitude.

I'm sure those that live in less developed countries, or war zones, regard death differently to us lucky folk, just as we regard it differently to our ancestors. It's a really interesting subject of discussion. We could use the input of an anthropologist / sociologist / psychologist here!


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## C. A. Stanley

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Yup, Krav Maga.



I did take a Krav Maga class a couple of years back, and really enjoyed it. It was just too expensive for me to keep it up at the time. Definitely something I want to pick up again in future, health permitting. Hopefully with a less crazy instructor aha, "If there's no CCTV around, keep stamping."


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## Malik

C. A. Stanley said:


> the kinda guy who would have his own action figure



*"With POWER DRINKING ARM!"

"Comes with 6 questionable coping mechanisms!* Try them all!" 

"Available in 3 versions: High-Rise Window Cleaner (includes Paternity Suit minigame**), Special Ops Soldier (includes push-button profanity generator and Article 15 paperwork), and Street-Legal Drag Racer!***"







Special Ops Soldier Joseph Malik Action Figure shown with Power Drinking Arm and Alcoholism[SUP]TM[/SUP] Coping Mechanism.
 (Alcoholism[SUP]TM[/SUP] Coping Mechanism includes contraband Martini kit for plate carrier.)​



*New coping mechanisms available each month with a subscription to our web service. Collect them all and trade with your friends!

**Office Bimbo Action Figures required. Sold separately.

***Manufacturer's note: Dragster starts 50% of the time. Street-Legal Joseph Malik Action Figure also includes a late-model Volvo.*


----------



## C. A. Stanley

Malik said:


> *"With POWER DRINKING ARM!"
> 
> "Comes with 6 questionable coping mechanisms!* Try them all!"
> 
> "Available in 3 versions: High-Rise Window Cleaner (includes Paternity Suit minigame**), Special Ops Soldier (includes push-button profanity generator and Article 15 paperwork), and Street-Legal Drag Racer!***"
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Special Ops Soldier Joseph Malik Action Figure shown with Power Drinking Arm and Alcoholism[SUP]TM[/SUP] Coping Mechanism.
> (Alcoholism[SUP]TM[/SUP] Coping Mechanism includes contraband Martini kit for plate carrier.)​
> 
> 
> 
> *New coping mechanisms available each month with a subscription to our web service. Collect them all and trade with your friends!
> 
> **Office Bimbo Action Figures required. Sold separately.
> 
> ***Manufacturer's note: Dragster starts 50% of the time. Street-Legal Joseph Malik Action Figure also includes a late-model Volvo.*



Excellent.

"Be careful with that Power Drinking Arm though, Drunken Joseph may reveal the co-ordinates to a super secret portal!"

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk


----------



## Malik

Power Drinking Arm is calibrated in accordance with applicable security clearance levels.


----------



## C. A. Stanley

Malik said:


> Power Drinking Arm is calibrated in accordance with applicable security clearance levels.



Disclaimer: The customer accepts full culpability in the event of unanticipated dissemination of classified information. If such dissemination occurs, Cool-Guy Action Figures Inc. strongly advises that the customer seek legal counsel.


----------

