Do you have to have experienced something to write about it effectively?

[cookiepuss]

do you? or are our emotions inherently instinctual? Can you write about being jealous if you've never been jealous? Can a person whose never had a torid love affair write a romance as well as someone who actually has personal expereince with it?

Certainly thousands of authors have written about characters who do things that the author has never done. the question is...does the author who has experienced elements of what he or she is writing about write it BETTER than someone who has not?

or are the base emotions that connect us all so instinctual that experience doesn't matter?

(lb)

[Waus]

I think someone who's experienced what they write about might have a better grasp of it, but that doesn't necessarily mean they can articulate it well.

[abcdefz]

If you've got intelligence, empathy, and imagination, you can write about something you've never experienced. If you add
a little bit of luck, you might just nail it.

[ms.peachy]

I think one can draw on experiences one has had and transfer the relevant emotions, thought processes etc to another situation. For example, Stephen Crane wrote the epic war story The Red Badge of Courage but had never been a soldier - I seem to recall he based a lot of his sort of 'gut-level' writing about battle based on his experience on the football field.

[ericlee]

I'd say it helps but if you want to write fiction then it should matter very little whether you've had experience.

Just like when people write all the bad points of the military only by going off what they've read in the news and such. Don't judge it unless you've been in it.

[Bob]

I think one can draw on experiences one has had and transfer the relevant emotions, thought processes etc to another situation. For example, Stephen Crane wrote the epic war story The Red Badge of Courage but had never been a soldier - I seem to recall he based a lot of his sort of 'gut-level' writing about battle based on his experience on the football field.

i was about to use that very same example. damn you. oh well, i suppose it's for the better, you actually remembered the author's name

[b i o n i c]

id say no, thats what makes a good writer - whatre you writing about?

[ms.peachy]

i was about to use that very same example. damn you. oh well, i suppose it's for the better, you actually remembered the author's name

:o sorry.


I think it's similar in some ways to what good actors can do with a character. Not neccessarily method acting (although I suppose that is one way to go about it), but that ability to take some words on a page and create from them a flesh-and-blood person. And like a director guides an actor, an editor guides a writer, in bringing out the work. Not sure if that makes sense to anyone outside of my head.

[MC Moot]

I wrote my thesis on heroin useage amongst women in the pre-natal population...I've never used heroin nor have I been pregnant...so,yeah,from my perspective I suppose you can...;)

[cookiepuss]

id say no, thats what makes a good writer - whatre you writing about?

I write about a lot of things...mostly fiction...but at times...lets say i'm writing something set in France. I've never been to France. I can read all the travel guides and history books in the world researching the setting...but there's little things...like smells and sounds...I don't know, I guess it's the FLAVOR of the place... that is hard to capture without having actually been there.

for the most part I agree that emotions are fairly universal and that the core of them can be translated and applied to many situations, experienced or inexperienced...

but I suppose it's those little details and little extra something that I wonder about...because there's plenty of times in my life where I can speculate how a situation would make someone feel and how I/they would react, but then when I actually expereince it the emotion is much more complex than I anticipated.

[AceFace]

i have a... story that i work on sometimes. i like to think it as a novella. it's an erotica about a clairvoyant that can foresee the lives of others but can't seem to see what will happen in her own love life.

i'm def not clairvoyant, but i seem to have fun writing about it.

[Dorothy Wood]

meh, I think you'd have to visit france before writing about it.

I don't know, I think experience and research needs to factor into good writing. I tried to read "Paint it Black" by Janet Fitch (the author of "White Oleander") and it seemed really flat. It was supposed to be about L.A. in the early 80's...and I guess that was the setting, but the writing came off very general. It was really annoying, some lady trying to write in a manner that was "cool", becoming decidedly uncool in the process. and all the name-dropping of bands and people that might as well have come off of a list of "most famous 'cool' things from 1981" was really distracting.

not that I knew what it was like back then, but I have enough general historical knowledge and have read some old music magazines (like Trouser Press) from back then to know that she was only glossing over the generalities of the time.


I dunno, I'm really picky. so I would say I'd appreciate a level of personal experience to make a story really something. but I guess as long as it has emotional truth, you could be alright. I'm writing an illustrated semi-autobiographical book about a girl with a wooden leg. and I don't have one of those. :/

[paul jones]

I think George Lucas must have taken some LSD in the late 60's to come up with Star Wars.

[yeahwho]

From "As Good As it Gets"

Receptionist: How do you write women so well?
Melvin Udall: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.

[MC Moot]

I think George Lucas must have taken some LSD in the late 60's to come up with Star Wars.

naaaaa he just went to a double feature of a Kubrick and a Kurowasawa flick...

[abcdefz]

From "As Good As it Gets"

Receptionist: How do you write women so well?
Melvin Udall: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.



I'm always interested to know what women think of the way I write women. I think I tend to err on the side of wisdom and saintliness,
which is maybe why I get good reports back. :D

[hpdrifter]

Pffft.

Re the France example, I don't know that you'd necessarily have to have been there. I think you can draw from conversations with people who have been there about how it made them feel and how a place touched their senses.

I think it probably helps if you've been there but if its not the core of the book I think you can pull it off.

[taquitos]

yes