Support for Indie Authors discussion

What's you guys' go-to-technique for writing (convincingly!) experiences you've never had?

For example: I was reading the review of a book where the entirety of the story is spent underground, and the critic noted that it was painfully obvious that the author had never set foot underground in his life. It got me thinking: you can research, watch as many documentaries or read as many personal accounts as you want, but can you ever -convincingly- replicate something if you haven't lived it?

Of course not. No amount of studying will EVER replace a physical experience. Having said that, I do think that an author can "fake" their way through it, if they take the time and energy to make sure everything seems coherent.
For instance, I have never once done heroin in my life, but experiences relayed by others helped me when I was writing my zombie apoc book. Knowing the POV of an addict, and how they sometimes approached their drugs, made it much easier to sit and consider what my character would actually do in a given situation. I've been told since then that I did a pretty good job of conveying some of their feelings when they're deep in their addiction.

Obviously, the answer to your question is yes, because I'm reasonably sure if we only wrote what we knew, we would not have sci-fi, fantasy, most horror and supernatural, historical fiction, or any other genre that is not grounded in reality.

Now, on basing a book in a real world location you have never been, yes, it is quite possible. We have Google maps and street view, as well as a wealth of demographic info. Now, is that going to tell you something seemingly insignificant that could throw a reader out if the story? Not likely, but say, for example, you were writing a character from a different country and you wanted to point out the variances in slang terms, it might be best to check several sources not only to make sure the words you choose are used, but also to find out how universal they are (I can't tell you how many books I've read where an American character is ignorant of a common British term that anyone with a slightly global reach might know)

As for an experience, such as mountain climbing or skydiving, there are resources, of course, but maybe the best way to go about that is to be vague in details. Personally, I know nothing of guns, but I wrote a character who works with a government militia. I made her terrified of guns and gave her excuses not to shoot them.

Read technical-level documents - getting all of the details right
Reading experiences and discussions of people who have had the experience - the feelings, the impact on their lives, their relationships, etc. - discussion boards, support groups, etc. with public postings - advice columns - websites of organizations that address the issue
Reading other books on the subject
Looking for youtube videos and images - getting the sights, the sounds, a more immersive experience

Christina wrote: "Obviously, the answer to your question is yes, because I'm reasonably sure if we only wrote what we knew, we would not have sci-fi, fantasy, most horror and supernatural, historical fiction, or any..."

Exactly what I was about to say! Life would be boring if people only wrote about what they knew, in my opinion!

I think the key to this is to do as much research as you can and then focus on the parts of it that you do know. For example, you may have no idea what it's like to be a spaceship engineer, but if you focus on that person's motivations, their feelings, their anxieties, their need to have success in their project, those are probably things that you can relate to and "know" on some level.

Do your research assiduously. Then learn to love your characters. If you are attuned, they will generally lead you on the right path. When they aren't leading you up a gum tree....

My go-to technique is reading memoirs. I haven't had certain experiences, but there are people out there who have, and they've written about it. What's it like to be a soldier in the special forces? What's everyday life like in a military dictatorship? Of course my stories are all based on pure imagination, but memoirs of real people give me access to authentic details.

First, Christina has a point, in that many authors convincingly write about experiences no one has ever had. But if the question is restricted to convincingly writing experiences you've never had that people can have, I don't think there is a to go-to-technique. Yes, research will allow you to get the details correct. And you can read about the experiences of other and even talk to them. But that does not necessary allow you to describe how it feels to (for example) jump out of a plane or be involved in a firefight, which is what I think makes the narrative convincing.

My feeling is that authors who can write convincingly about experiences they've never had have a high degree of empathy. They can put themselves in the place of a person having some experience and capture it convincingly without just relaying what they read or were told about it. But I don't consider that a technique. I do believe empathy can be worked on to degree, but some people are more gifted in that way than others. To me, that's what makes the difference.

Yes, you need empathy for sure. An experience is more than just a collection of facts and sensations. I am always a little nervous when I put out a new book to see how people who have had the experiences that I write about react to what I have written. And so far, I've had nothing but good response. People who immediately recognized their own experience, often thanking me for sharing it in a book so that other people can understand, or asking me whether I went through it myself or how I get inside the head of someone who has had that particular experience or disorder. But I always hold my breath, just a little, until those responses start coming in...

P.D. Workman (Pamela) wrote: "Read technical-level documents - getting all of the details right
Reading experiences and discussions of people who have had the experience - the feelings, the impact on their lives, their relation..."

I second all this advice.

It's funny because I think I've only ever written experiences alien to me, not even thinking twice. For instance, I love writing male characters even if of course, I've never been one. I also agree empathy is important. Paying close attention to other's experiences, how people behave, the things they say, the small details, the big ones. It's all important. I stress the small things too because there are little things we take for granted. For instance, you have an elderly character who isn't able to move as fast as her younger grand children. Maybe she's feeling a bit sore after a seemingly small bit of exertion. Or a girl who's had a history of being harassed might have a visceral reaction to the benign compliment of a stranger (okay, a bit of a dark example). Maybe something as basic as someone moves from a warmer climate to a cold one might be sensitive to the temperatures.

I would say also, it's always important to get a second opinion. For instance, I made sure to have males read my male characters to double-check that I'm going in the right direction. But then not all males are the same right? So then you have to take it with a grain of salt too.

Overall though, like someone mentioned, experiences are individual and I think it's important to remember that. For instance, three people can live in a city and their perspectives, opinions on it might all be different. I lived in NYC and if I write a book about it, I guarantee someone will tell me I have have it wrong.

So this can be a complicated thing. But the phrase "creative license" exists for a reason I suppose. Always do your best. It's all I can say.

Christina said: Obviously, the answer to your question is yes, because I'm reasonably sure if we only wrote what we knew, we would not have sci-fi, fantasy, most horror and supernatural, historical fiction, or any other genre that is not grounded in reality.

Right, exactly! And even beyond that - we can't experience everything. We wouldn't want to. (Y'all, I wrote a story in which a man was processing his wife's death. And then my partner died. Revising that story, later, was... WEIRD. And the weirdest part was how much I'd had right.) Writing is how we access alternate realities, right? I treat it like the game two truths and a lie - if I'm doing it right, the reader should not be able to tell what I've actually experienced myself and what I haven't. That's my goal, anyway.

People are goofy and idiosyncratic and every experience is in the context of everything else that a person has experienced. So I focus on the absurd. My characters tend to be super self-aware, so there's "wow, I didn't expect THAT to happen!" internal dialogue. The same experience conveyed differently by two characters, or in realtime and in memory. What they're distracted by, what else is going on, what state of mind they came into the event in. Humor, including black and sarcastic humor.

I visualize intensely, and I focus on a very embodied visualization process. What does it *feel* like? I've never surfed but I have body-surfed and swum in the ocean, so when I watch a video of a surfer (and I watch both observational videos and GoPro first-person-view videos) I have something to go on when I try to project my entire sense of self into the person in the video, imagine the temperature of the water, the spray, the shifting balance - I try to get inside it as much as possible, and then I write that. Dialogue, internal and external, comes out in the writing - I don't even think about it while I'm visualizing, just the body experience.

Also, I really try to focus on getting the underlying science right - physics, anatomy and physiology, psychology. I've never been shot, but I've read about and talked to people who have AND ALSO I've read a lot about the physiology of GSWs and the body processes that underlie the subjective first-person experiences people describe.

I don't craft an entire plot around a thing I don't have any experience at all to draw on or relate to; all of these different rich experiences that characters have are elaboration, and I keep it small and specific. That means there are some stories I can't tell, and that's okay.

A little bit ago I started writing a response to this, but it got almost as long as the novel I was dissecting. So! I will focus on only one part of the novel.

The main character of my one and only novel is a singer and guitar player in a rock band. I have never been in a rock band and do not play guitar. I can sing a little. I prepared for writing about Del in numerous ways. I do know a few people who have been in bands. I was in the high school band and remember a bit about reading music. My dad used to be in a country band (no, you never heard of them unless you lived in my little home town). Dad sang in church choir. I sang in my school's choir. I had vocal lessons in college. I have read several books on folk and rock stars, such as John Lennon and Bob Dylan. Del is in a rockabilly band, so I read books on rockabilly, listened to tons of that style of music and watched all the documentaries and videos I could find. I studied Buddy Holly, Del's favorite singer. I read stories and articles about people in bands.

On the flip side, there are people who have had real-world experiences (living underground, playing in a rock band, suffering a medical crisis), but they don't have the talent or the skills to transform those experiences into a book. If they did, God wouldn't have created ghostwriters!

Cool discussion! I'm about to start writing a military science fiction book. I've never been in the military, and I haven't been a Roman legionnaire (in this life, anyway) but I'll be writing a book with both those subjects in it. I'm actually using it as a teaching tool for myself.


I'll be following a lot of the suggestions here - reading first person accounts, using conjecture, comparing experiences I have had with what I'm trying to describe. I appreciate it when authors do the work needed to understand a field, so even if they don't have direct experience, they still know what they are talking about.

Sometimes, writing what I don't know can actually be helpful. It forces me to organize my thoughts and my story because I'm not writing by the seat of my pants. Because I am forced to think as I write, I end up with a tighter, better tale.

It's a given that we can. I think a trick is relating it to stuff that you HAVE experienced. While I've never been through some hardcore stuff, I've suffered through moderate stuff, and just exaggerate or find a way to relate them together.
Another thing is to write enough in a way that'll help to suspend some belief, while keeping it in a sort of realistic world. It's hard as hell to do, but it can be done.

Chris wrote: "What's you guys' go-to-technique for writing (convincingly!) experiences you've never had?

For example: I was reading the review of a book where the entirety of the story is spent underground, an..."

Depends on the author. I write books on parenthood, marriage, death, birth, love, being wealthy all things that I've never experienced firsthand. Ironically the parts of my books that I've experienced are the parts that readers think are made up! (That's because I deal with a lot of psychological issues and most people are ignorant about them outside of what Hollywood portrays.)

That said I'm an empath, so I experience a situation by hearing it described. The more logical the person the less likely they can feel others enough to experience others' experiences with them. That's the bottom line issue.

Like Michael said relate it to what yo have experienced. Also some people can't even write what they have experienced with any style or emotional depth, so maybe it's one's ability to convey a message through writing that's the issue at times.

I do hate it when white people write ethnic minorities, though, but for whatever reason that always gets a pass. The white authors can't relate enough to write characters that aren't terribly one dimensional or too politically correct. Even Stephan King fails at authentic minority characters.

But to answer the question, my go to method is empathy and good listening skills when hearing about others' experiences.

My first book was based in ancient Egypt. So, I read up a lot of Egypt and even read travel logs to get a sense of smell and air and heat and dryness to help create a sense of a place I've never been to.

I use my experiences from places I've traveled and my own personal life experiences, and others who I've been around and always feel the need to confide in me about whether I want to know or not, but I also research a lot when it's needed. Because I believe you can write about what you know and also about what you don't know. But I think you should choose your material wisely so to be convincing as possible. Add a lot more authenticity is key to balance the storyline out. But I agree with Christina we wouldn't have sci-fi, fantasy and the like if we knew everything and couldn't use our imaginations to orchestrate the story.

In military writing, of which I am as green as grass, I find that concentrating on the uniform is wrong. Concentrate on the units, the line of command and the titles. Whatever you do NCOs make every army run

Christina wrote: "Obviously, the answer to your question is yes, because I'm reasonably sure if we only wrote what we knew, we would not have sci-fi, fantasy, most horror and supernatural, historical fiction, or any..."

Ha! I had the opposite experience of reading a book with an American character visiting England who spoke like she was from England and not America. It made me a little crazy. :)

Another helpful tool is YouTube. You can see (and hear) experiences, locations, and events. I've gotten the bits I needed to write a few sentences around saddle-making, starting a fire with flint and cloth, water spouts, etc. All things I will never do or experience (at least I hope not, especially water spouts).

It's also pretty cool (for future books) to write about topics and emotions you understand really well, but place the story in a setting that is entirely new to you. Then you can get really involved in research, but you know how to immediately write the "grit" of the story.

Annette wrote: "I do hate it when white people write ethnic minorities, though, but for whatever reason that always gets a pass. The white authors can't relate enough to write characters that aren't terribly one dimensional or too politically correct..."

Then I will stick to only writing middle-aged white men. Nah. That would get boring so fast!

I think the fun is in writing what we never experienced (and might never ever EVER experience (taking a plane, i'm looking at you)), but also in trying to get the feel of it all correct.
So even when writing a character of different backgrounds, yeah it may come off clunky and just wrong (King does this often, but sometimes he does it right), but there's always the chance and challenge to getting everything realistic.
Being Hispanic, I have a slight advantage, but if I were to write in the way of living IN Mexico, it'd be a challenge, and I could get things completely wrong. But the fun comes in seeing if I might actually get it right.
So research will come in handy, personal experiences that come close might help, and of course maybe even putting yourself into the situation as well. I might take a nice trip into Mexico or something similar (I hear Google Maps is so much easier on the wallet). Hell, just talking to a person who's come straight from there would do wonders.
There's a lot of ways to get a feel for writing things we've never experienced, just requires a bit more imagination along with the research and what not.


and this came out way longer than i thought. hope I didn't stray from the topic

Talk to people who have had similar experiences. That's what I do, and social media makes it easier to do this than ever. If you don't personally know somebody or a place where you want to write about, put out a Twitter or Facebook post asking if they'll do an email interview with you. Research, research, research!

Rohvannyn wrote: "Cool discussion! I'm about to start writing a military science fiction book. I've never been in the military, and I haven't been a Roman legionnaire (in this life, anyway) but I'll be writing a boo..."
One thing you might want to look at is the Videssos cycle by Harry Turtledove (https://www.amazon.com/Misplaced-Legi...) which is about a Roman legionary transported to an alternative world. Turtledove, who was a historian of the Byzantine Empire before he became a best selling alternative history writer, understands the organization, equipment and culture of the Roman legion very well.

Fiction is writing largely what we don't know. Any historical that is outside our own lifetime, fantasy, sci-fi, crime from the criminal perspective (since few if any of us are murderers...I hope. though some may be cops) and the list goes on. I don't have kids and have never been pregnant but that doesn't mean I can't write from a parent's perspective. Like other's have said research it and write away. It is fiction after all.

Hmmm...I've never been or even met a vampire yet I am writing them.

I hope most crime novelists aren't criminals.


I think there's a place for it.
Just as long as it's not out of your knowledge zone.

My solution for writing what I didn't know was to first write the scene the way I needed science to work to achieve my plot goals.. Then I looked at the areas that were "sciency" and Googled for articles relating to the science I referenced. Then I looked up theoretical science related to what I was trying to describe. I learned so much this way that by the end of the novel I was pretty confident every aspect of the science that was in my book was at least theoretically possible. I've heard I broke physics a couple of times but only in a minor way. I think that's one of the disadvantages of being an indie author. We don't have teams of editors and people that are specialists in the sciences at our beck-and-call. However that is also an advantage because it gives us a reason to research areas that we might otherwise not have bothered with learning.

@Chris:
A lot of good bits of advice already. I will only add my twopence. A lot depends on what's the main point/goal of the story. If you are writing about the inner turmoils of the character about his past actions, while he is going through the jungle, you don't need to dig deep into jungle survival. If the story is about the survival, then... well, you have a lot to read :)

My suggestion is that if you feel less qualified in an area, then try to write about less details. I think that being a bit superficial is better than causing wtf moments to those who are better versed in the subject.

If you really need to do it, try to get hold of personal descriptions over general ones. Even better is you can talk to people. When you talk, you get a lot of minute details that will naturally occur to those who experienced it, yet you will not find it in normal books. Best solution is to experience what you can. (And make sense of course :) ).

Let me show you an example: If most people would write about a character walking endlessly in a desert, without water, they would describe the thirst. Obvious fact. Then maybe the dry mouth and breaking lips. That's still obvious or 'Hollywood' knowledge. Some may write about headaches or increasing pulse as the heart tries to pump a thicker blood. You will get that from books if you investigate. Aching joints will most probably only be mentioned by those who experienced it.

@Rohvannyn:

You really should do some background work. There are tonnes of misconceptions about how things worked in the Roman empire. Including military and everyday items. Movies made an insane amount of damage in this area...

And historians have made even more damage.

Samuel wrote: "And historians have made even more damage."

I agree that historians also made a lot of damage. Recording of events is always biased. Especially when opinion and evaluation is involved. But some 'historical movies' really make me want to pull my hair. Not about Rome, but a good example. The 300 Spartans. Either the old version (sixties maybe?) and the new '300' version. Both raise the Spartans to glory 'as the defenders of freedom and/or democracy', while Xerxes is the slaver 'bad guy'. Actually, Sparta was one of the most extreme slavery based societies in history, while Xerxes had a mostly paid army or free men. Not to mention that what 'democracy' was in Athene, was lightyears from what we think about democracy today. What's correct in the above two movies: There were about 300 Spartan warriors on the battlefield (among a lot more warriors of other states and the slaves the Spartans have brought with them), the location, and that they caused a delay in the Persian march.

Sorry... rant mode off :)

Lovely rant Zoltan. You sound like my baby brother who is a military historian. He rants most of the time.

I get grumbly when a story has bad science. I mean, if you're going to include science, at least research it. Or gloss it over. Don't put in bad data. One of my favorite OMG moments was in the GI Joe movie when the ice sheet SUNK! Ice doesn't sink!!!

I have a friend who is gun knowledgeable and he says most writers don't know guns. So, just say gun... don't describe it unless you know what you're talking about.

Hey? Can we get back on topic and stop knocking the way others write? No negativity. Thanks.

Zoltán wrote: "@Rohvannyn: You really should do some background work. There are tonnes of misconceptions about how things worked in the Roman empire. Including military and everyday items. Movies made an insane amount of damage in this area..."

Precisely why I'm still in outline and background information mode. I intend to do a frakload of research even though my story occurs in the future, so I can extrapolate properly, and also my spouse was a history major. Also, I completely hear you regarding movies.

I can see why you would want to make sure I did the research, because you want to avoid seeing one more travesty hitting the shelves, however don't assume I automatically won't do it. I'm with you in wanting to make sure only properly researched books are produced! Really I am!

(As for writing about firearms, if a person wants to write about them, why not hang out with a friendly gunsmith or spend some time at the range? Then you can learn a lot and have fun at the same time. I learned a tremendous amount working for a gunsmith.)

Kenneth wrote: "Rohvannyn wrote: "Cool discussion! I'm about to start writing a military science fiction book. I've never been in the military, and I haven't been a Roman legionnaire (in this life, anyway) but I'l..."

Thanks for the heads up. It might be something to look into, since I intend to age the Romans forward in some specific ways. It's 2000 years in their future, after all. However, I'll add that to my stack.

Guys, just a friendly reminder that there are no gatekeepers here. People can write what they want, research or not as they please, and you don't have to like or even read any of it. The question was whether or not it is possible to write what we haven't personally experienced, not to define the amount of realism others must show.

I think the thing you need experience with are the thoughts and actions of the characters. If you know what motivates them and it comes through in the writing, you can get away with a lot.

Yes, it is possible for writers to write well about things they haven't experienced. Many of the best Western writers obviously didn't live in the 1800's, yet you really feel their stories bring that time period to life.

The writers who write the most convincingly are the ones who really love the material they're writing about.

[edited: toned down from the before-coffee original. YMMV of course, this is how I work and everyone has a different experience, and it occurs to me that we are talking about our experiences of writing not-our-experience, which is fascinating and, uh, provocative.]

Gerard wrote: "The writers who write the most convincingly are the ones who really love the material they're writing about. "

YES THIS. Love and RESPECT.

I have been thinking about this thread, and specifically the exchange between Annette and Dwayne upthread, in the context of #ownvoices for days. Look, I don't think that privileged people can't write about marginalized experiences (or, for that matter, marginalized people about marginalized experiences not their own) because obviously it's been done and done well and of course has also been done so so very badlly BUT -

FREX, for a straight person writing about a gay character, research is necessary but not sufficient, it changes the relationship to the material to have actual gay friends in your actual day-to-day life, to READ what gay authors are writing in both fiction and nonfiction, and have conversations with people about those books, to use sensitivity readers. It is just tremendously enriching to participate in or at least follow a greater conversation of the gay experience in contemporary literature, the bar of entry is high because the stakes are high.

That goes for ethnic diversity, it goes for disability representation, and there's a lesson there that reflects on everything else, right?

I fell in love with astronomy, really fell in love with it, and got really angry about the marginalization of women in the sciences, and came to an understanding of that history in a way I hadn't before, when I was writing about a woman astronomer in the '70s. A throwaway line in one novel, intended to situate a character in time (a particular, real-in-the-real-world dam, was built while this character was away at college, and coming back home to a lake where there wasn't one before changed her mental landscape home in a jarring and enduring way) turned into a separate, standalone story that was a love letter to the mid-century conservation movement in the Western US, which had always been an interest of mine but I hadn't just opened up and explored deeply.

The desire to do the work it takes to get it right, to spend some time with the material, to get fired up and dig in and understand the nuances and tell a story that resonates, I think comes from a place of love and respect.

I got through about half of these comments, then ran out of time. I have to say I loved all of the answers I was able to read and agreed with most everything. One method I use that I didn't see here (but it could be that I just didn't get to it) is having someone knowledgeable on the subject edit the piece for me.

For instance, one of my characters is a bush pilot. She has landed single engine planes but never anything close to a jet. When she finds herself in an emergency situation and is forced to land a business jet, I wanted the reader to experience it with her. But I have never piloted any kind of aircraft, let alone anything as complicated as a jet.

So I went to work, and I spent an entire mind-exhausting day in research. In the end, I felt I had done a pretty good job writing the scene, but I knew there were likely some issues that any real pilot would pick up on and criticize me for. Luckily, I was able to find a commercial jet pilot to edit the scene for me. The amazing thing is that I had actually come pretty close to having it right the first time!

I think we, as writers, are obligated to get things as near to authentic as we can, but it will likely never be everybody's version of perfect so, at some point, you just have to shrug and say, "It's fiction, people."

Why not do a test with your beta readers after you've written the content in question that you may or may not have experienced?
Getting feedback early on can add value, fill in the gaps and give you more inspiration.

And, I do agree with Maryann Message 44: "It's fiction, people."

A fascinating discussion. And interesting that there was the comment "I hate it when white writers write minorities", because I've so often heard the very opposite comment, "I hate it when white writers don't write minorities". It's a complex issue: when is writing another culture "appropriation" and when is it "representation"? And is "culture" ever just one thing anyway? Like someone else earlier in the thread said, we're all individuals, and even when we share a "culture", we see things (and would do things) in completely opposing ways. Which means when it comes to our characters, some people will always think they're completely unbelievable, while others nod their heads with appreciation at how well we captured the Lived Experience of Beinghood.

As for the nittygritty details of occupations and/or particular settings, I agree with what everyone else has said: nothing beats lots of research, and talking to actual people.

I appreciate you writing this. I specifically included minorities in my story and people of different religions, as well as characters who are straight and gay. I had friends read different sections of my story to confirm I wasn't "being an idiot" re: their religion or sexual identity. Some of my friends really saved my ass. All the best to every one of us as we create our art.

Hi! When I'm really stuck, I try to make characters like people I know in the group I'm trying to write, and then have that person(s) read it. If it feels like them, even if it's a "stereotype" or "off" I've been faithful to the person I really care about, and they can tell me if I'm way off base.

I love the YouTube and memoir ideas! And I agree that empathy, respect, and really listening to the population you're trying to capture (or whose home or field you're trying to write) is crucial.

I also think there's a divide between "what you don't know, but someone else does" and "what you don't know and can't." I've been lookin' around, and I have yet to meet a real vampire. I gave it the college try and NADA. ;-) But I do know physicists. So I can make a vampire however I want, but Dracula take me if I sully the good name of the professors and family members who've tried to explain to me how reality is shaped. That amount of detail should be left to the kind of book and the audience you're looking at.

For example, hardly any crime books seem to get police procedure or criminal law right, but that hasn't stopped Law & Order from dominating for years and years. They know their audience doesn't care about the fussy part. They're there for the drama! So, I wouldn't worry too much if I was going for the soap opera version of a procedural, but if I wanted hard-bitten and gritty, I'd gear up for some amazingly boring, convoluted, and terrifying reading about the criminal justice system.

Hi, one method I was told about for characters is rather interesting.
16 Basic/foundation types can be found at https://www.16personalities.com Now, these apparently represent most human basic natures... some mixed... but for character planning this is a great base line... then one can add each additional layer of that individual's character. I also read somewhere that taking a picture of a person either we know or who are famous and using them for a building block... In away, look for the character that appears like our base made character and similar to what you do - then profile from their picture to add the layers to bring the character alive.

We've decided to close this thread due to the negative comments. No, not all have been negative, but we have asked that people talk about their own work and not complain about authors who "can't get it right", yet we have removed several such comments.