Writing What You Know, Part II

Recently, Intern Jenn wrote a blog post about making sure the details in your story are consistent and doing research if necessary to ensure that they are. Her advice is excellent, but after reading a few worrying partials recently, I'd like to add a related but different piece of advice: don't write what you don't know.

I've read many partial and full manuscripts by authors who have an interest in a particular subject--be it a profession, a hobby, a locality, or something else--and it really shows in the manuscript. There are no odd inconsistencies like Jenn wrote about, the stories tend to be a bit richer because of the all the detail the authors know about their subject matter, and the author's enthusiasm for their subject clearly comes across and often sparks the same enthusiasm in their readers.

A lot of these fantastic stories are based on first-hand experience--I've noticed a lot of lawyers writing legal dramas and crime thrillers, for instance--but many of them are based entirely on research. There's no rule that says that an author who grows up in the city and has never seen a horse in her life can't write a book about cowboys--but she is probably going to have to do extra research to be able to do it convincingly. And, if she does do enough research and really puts effort into it, she may be able to write a cowboy story that is even better than an author who grew up on a farm and made the Olympic equestrian team.

And then there are the authors who neither have first hand experience nor do any research at all. And the interns cry.

This problem most frequently arises in books that are based around a certain technology, especially the internet or cell phones. Remember that knowing how to use a device is not the same thing as understanding how it works. For example, many people own hair dryers. You don't need any research to tell your reader that your character dries her hair with a hair dryer--even people who don't use hair dryers have a basic understanding how they work (plug it in, turn it on, and hot air comes out). But say you have a MacGyver-esque protagonist who opens the hair dryer, crosses a few wires, and, magic!, the hair dryer is now a car. We know this can't actually happen, and it's so ridiculous that the reader won't be able to believe your story and will probably stop reading (unless your story happens to be a parody of MacGyver).

The key is to keep in mind who your audience is and how discerning they will be. Writing a children's book in which monkeys' fur turns green when they eat a lime popsicle is okay because it's a kid's book and they don't care if that can't actually happen. But if you write a cowboy book and you have no idea how to ride or care for a horse, it's time to go down to the library or stables and learn because many of your readers are going to be cowboy fans and are going to think it a bit odd when your protagonist reveals that his horse only eats chocolate cake. Likewise, if you write a regency romance, you better not have people driving around in SUVs.

Again, this isn't to say that you should only write about things you have first hand experience with. But I am saying that if you don't know the subject you're writing about, you need to learn about it because most times you don't need to be an expert to tell an author hasn't done his or her research. The more you know, the better your story tends to be.

~Lindsey

New Release

Today we're celebrating Cowboy Trouble, the debut release from author Joanne Kennedy. When big city journalist Libby Brown flees from her latest love-life disaster to live a self-sufficient life on a farm, the last thing she expects to find is Luke Rawlins, a sexy cowboy next-door neighbor who's more than willing to help her weather her first Wyoming season. Libby and Luke find themselves enmeshed in the small town's only crime, it looks like things will only get hotter--and more complicated--for the two of them. Cowboy Trouble is available everywhere books are sold, including Amazon.com and Indiebound.org. Congratulations, Joanne!

Mea Culpa

Sometimes when you step back and take a break from the routine, it frees up some time to do catch up work. To finally take a moment and check on things that you otherwise take for granted. To step out of the daily routine and look to see if those processes you have in place are actually working. That's what's been happening around here since I started my break from queries.

And lo and behold, I discovered a hiccup in the process we had in place to receive email queries. Somewhere along the way some switch may have tripped or some auto system may have reset and it looks as though some queries sent to our queries email box may never have reached their destination -- all totally unbeknownst to me. While it's not surprising that I missed that technological misstep (remember, I'm the one born in the era of black and white TV), we are all totally baffled that it was never brought to our attention in any way, until our web hosting company advised us that we were about to overflow our quota of space and Naomi began her investigation.

Sadly, we don't know how long this may have been going on and whether some of these lost queries made it through anyway or by other means.

But for those of you who submitted queries to that mailbox and never received any response from our agency, YOU HAVE MY SINCEREST APOLOGIES.

We always respond to mail that comes to us and we'll always say "no thank you" if we're not interested in your project. So if you submitted and didn't hear anything, it's likely your query ended up in this lost and lost chasm that developed in our website.

So, again, I apologize. Mea Culpa. The problem has been fixed. All systems are now working and we will ensure that they are fully operational at all times from now on. So, if you're still looking for an agent for that project, PLEASE query us again in May.

(Remember the break only applies to projects directed to me, Naomi continues to accept YA queries at naomi@elaineenglish.com).

Thanks, Elaine

Interiority and Voice

Our society is becoming increasingly image-driven. And although it is true that an image is worth a thousand words, as fiction writers it is important for us to remember that a novel is not a screenplay, and that although strong images are necessary building blocks of memorable fiction, the narrative form begs for interiority.

Every character sees the world in a different way. So that if a certain section of the novel is a close POV on one character (as it often happens), then actions and objects noticed are uniquely his/hers, so that if the same scene were told from another character’s perspective, it would seem completely different; even the “facts” of the events might differ. Stories do not have to be factual, but they should be truthful.

This is not to say that the narrator cannot pull back and use the tools of an omniscient POV (in fact, omniscience is vastly useful if done well), but that the writer needs to keep in mind, at all points, just who is filtering the story. Obviously, the type of interiority in a given work depends on the author’s choice of POV. I want to clarify that by “interiority” I don’t mean a constant bombardment of “She thought…” I mean utilizing every opportunity to illuminate the character’s interior want. As Grace Paley puts so succinctly, “The job of the writer is to illuminate what is hidden.”

Filtering plot through a unique perspective, personality, and set of opinions is also a step toward achieving a unique voice.

~~Julia
Creative Writing MFA

Details Matter

“Write what you know.” I’m sure each of you has heard this phrase at some point in your life. Of course, you might say that if we all wrote what we knew, that could be rather boring. Part of the great fun of writing is leaving the realm of reality behind to explore what you have never known but have always wished you did.

That’s all well and good, but make sure to do your research first because the details matter.

I cannot tell you how many times I have read a partial or full manuscript only to find that some of the finer details don’t add up. If your character hails from Lisbon, why is she speaking in Spanish instead of Portuguese? If her family is so poor that they can hardly provide food and shelter, why is she carrying around an iPod? If the American government has a strong presence in her small town, how is she getting married at age fourteen in this day and age?

When the details don’t fit with the story or the characters, they stick out—and not in a good way. They show sloppiness and a lack of research, and as they add up, the story becomes much less believable and, in turn, less appealing. Then it becomes much more likely that I will not recommend requesting a full manuscript or representing a story.

Perhaps it would be best to return to the strategies of “Creative Writing 101” and create a character web, writing up every possible detail involving your character, from her ancestry to a list of her past relationships—even if you never mention them in the story. If you’re writing about a time or place you’re unfamiliar with, it also wouldn’t be a bad idea to pay the library a visit in order to research and learn as much as you can about what you want to write. (However, I will say that I wouldn’t recommend movies, which are often quite fictionalized.) It might seem tedious in the short term, but in the long run, it will make your story that much stronger, more believable, and more likely to be published.

When writing, it’s fine not to write about what you know. You just need to remember to ask yourself, even when writing fiction, “Do all the details make sense together? Is this believable?”

Unless, of course, you’re writing a story that takes place in a fantastical alternate universe, in which case, suspension of belief is acceptable—even encouraged.

~Jenn