“Write what you know.” Great advice, right? Not always.
Sometimes you need to write what you imagine – distant worlds, space travel, terrifying monsters, heaven, hell, and everything in between. Books would be so very boring if we writers only wrote what we knew.
Maybe you really want to write about a roller coaster, but you’ve never been on an actual roller coaster before. You can watch a bunch of YouTube videos. You can put on a virtual reality headset and ride some of the most famous, terrifying roller coasters in the world. But if you really want to write a good story about a roller coaster, you need to experience one – in person. You need to buy a ticket and fight the crowds to stand in line. You need to hear the roar of the cars and the screams of the riders all while feeling the vibrations from the ride under your feet. You need to be strapped into a seat and hear the safety harness click into place, feel the surge of adrenaline when the ride lurches forward, and feel the g-forces as you enter the first loop.
When you write about that roller coaster, you can take creative liberties and add three loops instead of two. Maybe you leave out the part about the long lines or the sun beating down on your face because in your story, your character has snuck into the park after hours to ride alone. Some people are going to cry foul because the last time they rode a roller coaster, it was on a wooden track instead of steel, or they used to work in a popular theme park (like I did as a teenager) and know that riding after final closing hours, unsupervised, is nearly impossible.
But that’s okay, because this is your story.
“Write what you know.” Well, not really. Learn everything you can. Do your research. Experience as much as possible. It will make your writing stronger, and more believable so the reader will be willing to give you more leeway when you have to bend the truth.
And most importantly, it’s fun!
Here’s my advice today to anyone, but especially to writers (many of whom, like me, tend to spend more time behind a keyboard than out in the real world.) Go ride a roller coaster. Fall in love. Ride a horse. Get a tattoo. Go to the county fair. Sleep under the stars. Adopt a cat. Go to a club. Visit a museum. Spend a day at the zoo. Play an escape room with your friends.
For “research”.
#WIP #TheWriteLife #OliviaBlacke #killermystery
