PseudonymJ

Seriously, whats got your back up?
I was (genuinely, not sarcastically) thanking you for your post.
If you weren't trying to enlighten me then why post? For your self gratification? If so, thats just sad.

PseudonymJ

Yes, i know my grammar isn't the best.

I'm suggesting that he could. To say that he possibly couldn't would be truly moronic.

Arin

What constitutes ignorance, though? Say those two equally matched writers wrote about the same thing and one had experienced it and the other had heard about it from someone else. Is the person who experienced it going to write better? Perhaps, like Pseudonym originally said, the person who merely heard about it has a more realistic perspective on it. Maybe the person who experienced it cannot effectively control their emotions associated with the event and therefore produces writing that lacks depth or clear organization.

I don't like the saying "Write what you know." What I know is limited. What I want to know and what I can imagine, however, is infinite. Or much, much bigger than what I know, at least. Say I decided to write a story about a black girl in rural Georgia during the 1920's. I would do research and maybe talk to people, of course, to round out my story, but maybe, just maybe my own experiences just as a human being could bring my story about to the same level to a black woman would lived in rural Georgia in the 1920's.

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Truth-Teller

You have a point, Arin. (Why couldn't Pseudonym come up with intelligent post as that?) This is the most egregious sin novice/beginning writers commit: instead of writing something in their field (such as bartending or telemarketing) they veer toward weird halluncinatory fantasy, subjects in which they lack experience, and churn out shitty writing.

Stick to your subject. Stick to what you know. Anyone can do research on Wikipedia.org.

ClancyBoy

My degrees are in Japanese and Chinese. They haven't really helped me yet, except for maybe the whole linguistics angle.

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ClancyBoy

Have to disagree. What you can imagine is very very limited by what you know.

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PseudonymJ

I already said i didn't have the time to add clarity to my argument, if you'd actually cared to read my posts.
Thank you Arin for taking the time to expand on what i said (instead of the snipey remarks and name-calling posted by others.)

Yeah, i agree to an extent. My original argument was about experience, not knowledge though.

Mike C

Perhaps, perhaps... In the first instance I guess it would depend on the second writer's interviewing skills - could he draw out the interviewee's experiences sufficiently for him to be able to convey that realistically on paper? In the second instance, parhaps again. My grandfather was in the marines during WW2 and, until the day he died, couldn't bear to talk about his experiences. Not a word; the war didn't exist as far as he was concerned, so sure, anyone who's seen Saving Private Ryan could write a better war story. But he wasn't a writer. We're comparing chalk and cheese; I'll refer again to Hemingway and Orwell, both of whom 'wrote what they know' and both are considered literary giants.

Arin, you might not like the 'writing about what you know' thing, but it has it's place. But remember, the 'what you know' needn't necessarily be scene (else there'd be no SF or fantasy). Good stories are about people, and how they interact under any given circumstances. That's where your knowledge comes in, and that's what you write about. You may not be the best person to write about a post-menopausal neurotic housewife (unless you are one) but you're the best person to write about you, and people like you.

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PseudonymJ

Thats kind of what i was getting at. Is a post-menopausal neurotic housewife really the best person to write about post-menopausal neurotic housewives? (In a fiction sense). Could it be more entertaining for (male) readers to read about them from a male writers point of view? (with all the sterotypical expectancy and pre-concieved ideas that may actually be more entertaining than the stark reality).

BillyBob

I left uk at 11 went to school in france for 4 years then left school at 15 to renovate houses.

Im now 19, i read a lot and try to write a lot, hopefully practice will make perfect.

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Mike C

Hilarious, probably, if you want to ignore reality and substitute it for cliché and misinformation. If you want to write a sympathetic, realistic character that readers can empathise with (rather than laugh at) then I'd say no, it couldn't.

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PseudonymJ

Surely you want characters that seem more realistic to your readers, than ones that are 'real world' realistic? Or is this not the case? (genuine question, i seriously do acknowledge that you are the better writter and value your views).

This will be my last post on the matter, i feel the discussion has pretty much taken its course. I genuinely do thank you for your replies, even if they were born out of annoyance at my ignorance.
Hopefully you've seen that i do have a point, admitedly a minute one which i haven't argued very well at all.

Finally, apologies to the thread creator for going seriously off topic.

Mike C

Maybe we differ in what we see as 'real world' realistic. I want to learn something from characters I read about, not have stereotypes reinforced through pastiche. I like honesty.

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Mr Sci Fi

I can see where Pseudonym is coming from, as a person who actually "experienced" war may have grown desensitized to the depravity of it all. An outside observer may have a more grotesque vision of war.

I suppose it really depends on what the author is trying to say. Obviously, as far as authenticity is concerned, I'm taking the word of the man who's actually experienced it.

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Mike C

It depends on your take, but in many instances an old sweat who's become desensitised may actually convey the horror of war far better. If you've read any of Sven Hassel's novels, which were (he claims - others argue otherwise) based on his wartime experiences fighting on the German side in WW2 both in Europe and the Eastern Front, his characters are all pretty battle-hardened and cynical, and none of the horrors of war touch them any more. Except occasionally; maybe for one, it'll be the sight of a dead baby, for another something else, that will reduce a hardened killing machine who'll happily rape and kill anything tht moves to a sobbing mess. For me, through that combination of cynicism and weakness, I got a far better feeling for both how horrible war is and the effects if can have on people than any amount of sensationalised blood and gore.

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