Do not know if that even makes sense or can be said. I am fairly new at writing and new to this board and was hoping a few of you experienced writers may be able to help me out.
I am writing a young adult, non-fiction, half of the story takes place in Kentucky, and the other half in rural China. I have chosen an actual city in Kentucky, and having read about it but not actually having been there, how important is it for my descriptions to match reality? For example, if I am describing the smells and sites of a tobacco field - something I've only seen in pictures and never smelled, but the kind ready made for smoking, is it alright to create and fill in the blanks with my own imagination? I know it is fiction, but want to be factual when I can be. Just curious on the points of creating a believable surrounding.
Thanks in advance, shuizhuniurou
Posted by autumnmuse (Member # 2136) on :
Many skilled writers are able to fully evoke scenes, locations, or events that they have no personal experience with. What I would do in your situation is write the best description you can with your knowledge and research, then have someone who HAS experience in smelling tobacco fields, for example, read what you have. They can help figure out if you sound plausible.
In my own novel I'm writing a character with one leg shorter than the other. I don't have this problem personally, but it would affect the character's life significantly, and the plot of the novel, so it was vital to get it right. I started with internet research as a jumping off place. Then, just yesterday actually, I met someone with different length legs and asked him to tell me if I was being accurate in my portrayal of my character.
Research and confirmation from other people when possible can definitely take the place of experiencing it yourself, but I do believe the very best option is personal experience. However, if I only wrote things I had personal experience in, I would be writing some pretty boring books.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
"Writing what you know" is mainly an issue in POV character choice.
Taking the example of tobacco fields, if you've never smelled one, then it's very difficult to write a POV character who's grown up with them. If your POV character is someone who--like yourself--has never smelled a tobacco field before, then you can just say that it was full of strange plants, never mind about the smell unless your POV character has a super sense of smell.
Sometimes the progatonist is basically different from you in a way that's important to the story. When that happens, you have to do your best through research and a little imagination.
Posted by Shuizhuniurou (Member # 4118) on :
Thank you both for your insights. I understand how important imagination is to a story teller, and I have no problem creating ideas. But, the biggest challenge for myself, hope that it will get better over time and a whole lot of practice, is putting what I see into words. Will continue researching, through direct experience, interviews (seems the most challenging), research, and what not. Really interesting to hear you ran into an individual with a shorter leg than the other. Curious how you broached the subject. Before I'd gotten that far in your response, thought of tying a hand dictionary to my right foot. But, I am sure another's life experience is much more insightful than walking around for an hour until you sprain your leg in the name of research. In my novel, one of the young characters is experiencing real fear of a situation that does not exist, except in their mind, and trying to remind myself what fear felt like - on Halloween I rented 'The Grudge' had a few drinks to stimulate an easily influenced mind. Alone, with the lights out, I tried to keep track of what I experienced. Worked all too well, unable to cross under the storage attic that lay before my bedroom door. YIKES!
Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :
Wow. I wonder what would have happened if you had watched a SCARY movie.
Check out some early interviews with Kazuo Ishiguro. He became known from his first couple novels as an author who was very good at portraying Japanese culture. He grew up in England, though (although he is, obviously, of Japanese ethnicity). He talked a lot at the beginning of his career about how he created such a vivid world that so many critics bought into as the real thing, when he had no idea if the stories he wrote were at all close to actual Japanese culture.
You might also try reading the books in question. They're very good. "A Pale View of Hills" and "An Artist of the Floating World" (or something close to that) are the titles.
Posted by franc li (Member # 3850) on :
I'm writing some therapy dialogue and I'll have to have an actual therapist look it over at some point to make sure I don't have them say something a therapist would never say. Sucks if it turns out to be something I know my therapist said There are a few things. I have pockets of photographic/phonographic memory. I don't know how anyone could have literally photographic memory of everything.
Posted by CoriSCapnSkip (Member # 3228) on :
It's of varying importance to various people. To me, accuracy makes a great deal of difference in how I regard a book. Now, obviously the Newbery Award committee thought Sharon Creech did a good enough job to give her a gold medal for "Walk Two Moons," but for whatever reason Sharon Creech thought it unimportant to make her descriptions of Lewiston, Idaho, accurate. I personally drove there after reading the book and took photographs to show what was WRONG in that book. Some were small matters of artistic licence, while others were just NOT RIGHT. It seemed like the memories of someone who'd visited once, years ago, and filled in the rest from memories of visits to other places--some was outdated and some JUST WRONG, and the book fell in my estimation accordingly. (This will probably be in direct proportion to how close each reader is to your chosen setting.)
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
"Write what you know" might seem good advice, but I've found if I try anything beyond straight autobiography, writing what I know makes for fiction that bores me. [Everybody besides me would also find the straight autobiography boring.] Besides, nobody really knows anything about the far reaches of the galaxy or the distant (or near) future.
I'm hip-deep into writing a novel set ostensibly in 1947. (Science fiction, though.) But I've only done minimal research into the period. I'm still pounding away at it but I'm sure lots of it will have to be rewritten in the face of said research.
Oh. I also concur with CoriSCapnSkip about accuracy in terms of setting. If you're going to set something in a definite place, you definitely have to know what what that place looks like in many details, big and small.
(Jack Finney wrote a time-travel novel (Time and Again) set partly in the now-infamous but then-relatively-unknown Dakota Building in New York City---the story was set in, I think, 1882, but the building wasn't built until 1885. (It's been awhile since I read it and I don't have a copy in front of me.) If you change something, you'll have to make a note of it.)
[edited to close parentheses]
[This message has been edited by Robert Nowall (edited November 07, 2006).]
Posted by franc li (Member # 3850) on :
Oh, that Dakota. Actually, it was where Rosemary's Baby was filmed and John Lennon lived there when he was assasinated. At least, according to my Christine Lavin CD.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I gather Rosemary's Baby came out about the same time as Time and Again, ten or eleven years before Lennon's well-publicized murder. Haven't seen Rosemary's Baby other than the occasional clip, and I read Time and Again four or five years before the events of December 8th, 1980...
Posted by J (Member # 2197) on :
You drove to another city to document errors in someone else's novel? Any particular reason, or were you just looking for something to do on a Saturday?
Posted by Shuizhuniurou (Member # 4118) on :
Once again, some great advice everyone. Will just have to keep the questions coming! Would agree, it could get a bit messy, dipping to deep in the local dialect. Just sticking with the grammar and local slang. The other half of the novella (believe that is the word to use - am learning new words everyday that are tossed around in the world of writing - I am floating around one of the farthest rings, just trying to hang on) takes place in China - and figured when the girl speaks - I'll stick with standard English (she really doesn't speak English, but for the reader's sake.) Thanks again and Wet Willy (just had to wipe out my ear) I plan on heading to the library tomorrow for a bit of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. Will be a nice break from The 9-11 Commission Report - not exactly light reading.
There are a few things. I have pockets of photographic/phonographic memory. I don't know how anyone could have literally photographic memory of everything.