![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via http://bit.ly/2QikcNu
continuing my pretending i know what i’m talking about,
(impromptu series here: 1) Worldbuilding Textures, 2) re: Worldbuilding Textures, and 3) Counterpoint: You Don’t Have To Research What You Don’t Want To)
I’ve been sort of mentally circling back to my first essay, where I talked about how great it was to already know stuff I was interested in so I could describe it in my writing.
So I thought I’d talk about that: it seems to me that the main point of fiction, really, is that it presents people with things that they can relate to, and can experience in their imaginations. I was making the point that you don’t have to force yourself to learn about stuff you don’t want to, you can find ways around it, but I didn’t mean for that to imply you just shouldn’t include stuff.
Not at all! Don’t be shy about describing things you’re passionate about! Of course you should research stuff you’re interested in, and put in at least some of the research you did, if you can possibly fit it into the story– and if it’s something you discover that you’d like to know about, absolutely seek out as many sources as possible and dive as deeply as you can manage into this thing that is interesting to you.
You have to balance it, as you have to balance all things– sometimes you wind up so sucked-into research that you never write the thing. And sometimes you wind up stuffing the first draft so full of gigantic dumps of the information you uncovered that the story itself gets completely lost.
But sometimes, in reading up on (or watching videos about, or talking to experts in, or however you learn about) the thing, you discover entire plot points and storylines you would not have thought of on your own, suggested by the very nature of the thing. You have farmers in your story, so you read up on how farming is done, and settle on what crops they must grow, and there you have the pacing of your events– something happens during planting, something else during tending, a third thing during the harvest, your timeline is all worked out. You learn about the realities and rhythms of the worlds of these different kinds of craftspeople, and realize that your nebulously thought-out storyline must wind through that structure, and suddenly you have a whole plot trellis!
It can go either way, and sometimes both ways at the same time, and you just have to try to balance. You’ve also got to be honest with yourself, and see where your disinterest is showing– writing about nomads with very little idea of how their pastoral system works is probably going to wind up showing off your ignorance, so maybe either suck it up and do some light research OR rejigger the plot so they’ve got a different reason to be traveling. You’ll learn, once you’ve got some practice and if you stay honest, the difference between “I am disinterested in this because it does not serve me” and “i am being lazy because I don’t know where to begin learning about this”– mind there’s no such thing as laziness, but it’s the easiest description. Laziness always has an underlying cause and you’ve got to find it to move past it.
There are no hard and fast rules about this, no secret formulas– or, if there are, I don’t know them– and you just have to use your judgement.
But. To sum up this impromptu and very drawn-out series– no, you don’t have to research things you’re not that interested in. There’s no requirements for specific topics to appear in your writing. But you ought to include the things you do love, because those very things are what people are going to wind up hooked by and drawn into your story. I have had so many responses from readers over the years who have Noticed that one detail I added in from experience, and have been so delighted by it, so drawn-in and included, and that one thing was what will stay with them– in some cases, for years.
continuing my pretending i know what i’m talking about,
(impromptu series here: 1) Worldbuilding Textures, 2) re: Worldbuilding Textures, and 3) Counterpoint: You Don’t Have To Research What You Don’t Want To)
I’ve been sort of mentally circling back to my first essay, where I talked about how great it was to already know stuff I was interested in so I could describe it in my writing.
So I thought I’d talk about that: it seems to me that the main point of fiction, really, is that it presents people with things that they can relate to, and can experience in their imaginations. I was making the point that you don’t have to force yourself to learn about stuff you don’t want to, you can find ways around it, but I didn’t mean for that to imply you just shouldn’t include stuff.
Not at all! Don’t be shy about describing things you’re passionate about! Of course you should research stuff you’re interested in, and put in at least some of the research you did, if you can possibly fit it into the story– and if it’s something you discover that you’d like to know about, absolutely seek out as many sources as possible and dive as deeply as you can manage into this thing that is interesting to you.
You have to balance it, as you have to balance all things– sometimes you wind up so sucked-into research that you never write the thing. And sometimes you wind up stuffing the first draft so full of gigantic dumps of the information you uncovered that the story itself gets completely lost.
But sometimes, in reading up on (or watching videos about, or talking to experts in, or however you learn about) the thing, you discover entire plot points and storylines you would not have thought of on your own, suggested by the very nature of the thing. You have farmers in your story, so you read up on how farming is done, and settle on what crops they must grow, and there you have the pacing of your events– something happens during planting, something else during tending, a third thing during the harvest, your timeline is all worked out. You learn about the realities and rhythms of the worlds of these different kinds of craftspeople, and realize that your nebulously thought-out storyline must wind through that structure, and suddenly you have a whole plot trellis!
It can go either way, and sometimes both ways at the same time, and you just have to try to balance. You’ve also got to be honest with yourself, and see where your disinterest is showing– writing about nomads with very little idea of how their pastoral system works is probably going to wind up showing off your ignorance, so maybe either suck it up and do some light research OR rejigger the plot so they’ve got a different reason to be traveling. You’ll learn, once you’ve got some practice and if you stay honest, the difference between “I am disinterested in this because it does not serve me” and “i am being lazy because I don’t know where to begin learning about this”– mind there’s no such thing as laziness, but it’s the easiest description. Laziness always has an underlying cause and you’ve got to find it to move past it.
There are no hard and fast rules about this, no secret formulas– or, if there are, I don’t know them– and you just have to use your judgement.
But. To sum up this impromptu and very drawn-out series– no, you don’t have to research things you’re not that interested in. There’s no requirements for specific topics to appear in your writing. But you ought to include the things you do love, because those very things are what people are going to wind up hooked by and drawn into your story. I have had so many responses from readers over the years who have Noticed that one detail I added in from experience, and have been so delighted by it, so drawn-in and included, and that one thing was what will stay with them– in some cases, for years.
