Writing exercises: Where I have never been...

[lyonessheart]

The exercise:

Choose a country where you have always longed to go but haven't yet been and set a story there. Read old and new travel guides, and the National Geographics, google it, buy a map, study the country's politics, religion, government, and social issues; read cook-books - always, always looking for the persuasive detail, something you

Comments

[nia_kantorka]

Don't forget the temperatures of the places you're writing about.
And if you google distances between places and use a route planner add some minutes because it mostly takes longer than those planner say. It's not that important in HP fandom where one can Apparate, but even our characters sometimes use bikes or cars... :D

Dear mods, this whole month on hd_writers has been a blast. Thank you for all the tips, tricks and charts! ♥

[smallbrownfrog]

Cookbook = genius.

I've looked up old weather reports and seasonal gardening tips for past fics.

[germankitty]

I don't quite get it -- isn't that what you just DO when writing? *is puzzled*

Seriously, though, the cookbook is a novel idea; something I hadn't thought of (yet). Thanks! :-)

This technique can be extremely effective, as I've experienced myself. There's a 19th-century German author named Karl May who's famous for his travel/adventure novels, and he started writing as a young man when in prison for petty theft, with only the tools and sources of the time at hand -- atlases, geography books and Baedeker travel guides he found in the prison library.

I used to be a fan of May's writing as a kid, and frequently reread some of his early novels set in Northern Africa. In what's actually Vol. 1 of the Collected Works, his characters had to traverse the Chott el Djerid, a salt lake flat in what's now Tunisia -- and May managed to describe that area and the landscape so well that when I traveled that same route (by bus) about 100 years later, I actually had a strong sense of déjà vu!

[lyonessheart]

Hi Kitty, yes when you are an experienced writer you do this. But I think about those of us that are just getting started and that are not quite so sure how to go about this, and I like getting immersed into a new country, topic, etc :) and it shows.

Your beltane fic was a wonderful example on just how good stories can be when you heed the advice I posted in this next to last tip for others :)

[germankitty]

*blushes* Thanks. :-)

Obviously I can only talk about myself, but even in pre-internet days, when I was just starting out as a writer, I tried to at least get my facts straight and looked up what I didn't know about a setting -- libraries and encyclopedias were my best friends. :-) But then I've always been anal that way ... and just tried to emulate what I enjoyed reading myself.