Writing About Places You've Never Been To

[Tux Toledo]

The old rule is you should write about what you know. However, with the advent of the internet and access to videos and photos, in addition to informative articles, do you think a writer can effectively set a novel in a location he/she has never been to?

[Shangas]

"Write about what you know" is a stupid rule. Nobody should ever follow it. It's misleading and it's limiting.

I've written stories set in places that I've never been to. I set a story in Shanghai. Never been there. I set stories in cities in America I've never been to.

What you "know" is subjective. You don't have to GO somewhere to know stuff about it. That's why I hate that rule. I never follow it. And if you do, I firmly believe you're severely limiting your writing and imaginative capabilities.

So you don't know what a place is like. READ. ASK. RESEARCH. BE IMAGINATIVE. That's what I do.

I'm willing to bet that almost nobody on this forum has EVER gone to New York, London, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore, Paris, Melbourne, Los Angeles, CHicago or Toronto in the 1920s and 30s.

But that doesn't stop people writing about it. But how can they? They don't KNOW ANYTHING about those places because they've never been there at that time.

Or have they?

See my point?

I'm willing to bet that nobody here has ever gone to the moon or been to space. Does that stop people writing science-fiction? I'm willing to bet most people here have never flown an airplane or gone to sea. Does that stop them writing maritime adventures or round-the-world quests?

I bet nobody here has ever experienced the American Civil War. Doesn't stop people writing fiction pieces about it. Or any other war for that matter.

It
Is
A
Stupid
Rule.

Ignore it.

You're only limited by what you read and research about. You're only limited by your interest and your determination. "Knowing" is irrelevant.

[Terry292]

A few years ago, my wife had three articles published about golf courses in Las Vegas, NV. She's only been to Vegas once and doesn't play golf at all. So, you don't necessarily have to have been to a place to write about it. You don't even have to be an expert in the subject you're writing about. That's one of the advantages of the internet: you can research almost any subject you wish. Then, you can go from there to improve your knowledge.

[A.C. Lyles]

The old rule is you should write about what you know. However, with the advent of the internet and access to videos and photos, in addition to informative articles, do you think a writer can effectively set a novel in a location he/she has never been to?

If you are writing a travelogue, then yes; otherwise no.

[davidraphael]

Personally, I think that Shangas, though he/she is partly right, is 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater' a bit. I think it's a bit more complex than that.

The rule 'write what you know' does not necessarily refer to 'cruder' narrative elements such as locations and historical periods - all these can be researched (and once you have researched something then you DO know it), and even then you only need enough detail for the audience to feel that the location/period is genuine. Absolute historical accuracy, for example, is not even necessary. If you want accuracy go write a non-fiction book or make a documentary.

If you write fiction your only job is to create a believable world, whether or not it really exists.

If anything it's easier to write about far-flung locations and time periods because the vast majority of people will have no experience of them to compare.

I think 'write what you know' (which is a suggestion or a principle more than a so-called rule) is applicable more to the important aspects of story creation, those being the characters, the conflicts and emotional content. If you don't know what it feels like to survive a disastrous marriage, to be fired, to have your children hate you, to make a terrible mistake and feel profound guilt, shame, or to overcome terrible odds to feel elation or genuine joy, then you risk the believability of your story.

First and foremost the characters have to feel like real people. Whether your character is a spaceman on Mars, a POW in Poland, a 19th cowboy, or butler in a 17th century English mansion is irrelevant - the character must display emotions and concerns that the reader can identify with. Take Shakespeare - he wrote about Macbeth. Did 16th/17th century Shakespeare care about the historical or locational facts of 11th century Scotland? Probably not that much: yes, he would have wanted enough to create a believable environment, but his priority was to get right what the audience could identify with the most - the human stuff: greed, power, manipulation, paranoia, fear. And these emotions are as believable to us now as they were then. We all feel them at one time or another, no matter who we are.

Ok, so the writer may write about losing a wife even though he may not have felt what it's like to lose a wife, but if he's sensitive he'll use what he felt when he lost someone else - an old girlfriend, his parents, a best friend, whatever. But I don't think it's easy to write about emotions you have no experience of.

Your only job is that of creating believability out of a fictional situation (a fiction writer uses lies to tell the truth.), but how you get that is your business. Yes, it may be possible to create a believable world that you have absolutely no experience at on any level, but very few of us are innate geniuses.

Ultimately, my advice would be: 1. Don't write anything unless you are absolutely confident that you can make it appear authentic to the reader. 2. Believability is more important than facts (though of course there will be some cross-over)

[Shangas]

Okay, first..."He".

Secondly...

Ultimately, my advice would be: Don't write anything unless you are absolutely confident that you can make it appear authentic to the reader.

That was a long way to get to a one-sentence piece of advice. But I do agree with it. I think you summed it up very nicely.

Maybe my first response and analysis was a bit overdramatic. I apologise if that offended anyone. However, I don't for a minute sway from the essence of it. That you should only write about what you "know" is an extremely subjective argument. How do you define what you 'know'? There's dozens of definitions. You don't have to have gone to a place to know stuff about it. As A.C. Lyles says, you would probably only really have to do that if you're writing a travel-guide or something where extremely detailed, local-style knowledge of a place is essential to a good piece of writing.

To me, in the world of fiction-writing, writing about what you 'know' doesn't really come into it. It's whether or not you have the skill to make people enjoy what you write. It's whether or not you have the ability to make people believe in what you write. Whether or not what you've written sounds authentic and credible and believable. It's whether or not someone can enjoy it for what it is. And this relates to any piece of fiction.

But to get there, you need to be open and unrestricted. And I don't think can do that if you follow that 'rule' for the pure fact that there's a million interpretations of it, and if you followed any one of them, you'd end up limiting what you would write about and limiting your creativity moreso than if you just ignored it and, to use a horribly cliched line, "followed your heart".

[LoveMyHats2]

You can think of a great Author, Isaac Asimov. Many of the "fictional" things he writes of, robots, ray guns, space ships...all fiction that turned non fiction. He never went to mars or the moon....but did in his writings....and maybe perhaps in his dreams. I personally think a writer has only what limits he or she sets for themselves.

[davidraphael]

Yes, I agree. If you take it as a steadfast rule, you're limiting yourself enormously. It's just something that can help keep you in track; it's just a word of warning.

Following your heart, or following your bliss, as J Campbell calls it, is crucial.
A writer, any artist, should feel free to do whatever the hell they want...as long as they remember who their intended reader is and what that reader will expect. I've had to edit a lot of writers in my time and, unfortunately, there are many who have allowed their artistic and creative enthusiasm to run away with them and they have produced work that reads hollow because their world or character actions were not entirely credible. Yes, it's a matter of skill and how good the writer is. But, in my experience, the simple and unfortunate truth is that the vast majority of writers, particularly amateur writers, simply aren't strong enough to be able to produce reader-recognisable environments (much less emotional conflicts) that they do not have some experience of, in whatever form.

Whether or not what you've written sounds authentic and credible and believable. It's whether or not someone can enjoy it for what it is. And this relates to any piece of fiction

I think it's all connected. A reader can't truly enjoy a work unless they feel that it is credible and believable. They're inextricably linked. If you break 'the narrative dream', as John Gardner calls it, you're written a bad piece of work that brings the reader out of the story/dream. This is often, most importantly, a plot vs character issue, but it can also be true of environments.

Another good piece of advice I learned was 'Learn the rule inside and out and then forget about it'...

[A.C. Lyles]

Another good piece of advice I learned was 'Learn the rule inside and out and then forget about it'...

What, like they did on Wall Street this last go-round....


j/k


...one should learn the rules before you break them........

[davidraphael]

...one should learn the rules before you break them........

Exactly!

I often come across writers who decide from the outset that they're going to ignore, for example, 3-act structure -or any narrative structural/technical principle for that matter- because they feel that it is limiting to them as artists. But as you say, you can't break a rule unless you know what it is. You can't transcend, successfully manipulate, or oppose something unless you know what it is, what it can do, and what its limitations are.

Picasso moved to abstraction because he had already mastered more figurative forms and worked out ways to transcend accepted forms of visual representation. Hitchcock could kill off Janet Leigh in Psycho when he did because he knew exactly what would happen to audience's emotions if he did it at that point in the narrative structure (because he knew intimately the way conventional structure works, so knew precisely how to play against it)

Writers who don't learn the craft first risk re-inventing the wheel, or producing work that simply doesn't hang together properly - I've seen it happen again and again.

I'm going off-topic a bit i think so I'll stop.