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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29598
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29598
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I am an old writer. My advice is simple: Steal experience!

To be more specific, you need to study some existing fiction that is in the best-seller, well-reviewed, or highly acclaimed realm. When I say **study** I mean you should consume it once to enjoy it, then consume it again, and again with your analytic mind firmly in charge.

What did the author do to make you love Alex? What did they do to make you hate Brittany? How exactly did they manage to show you that Charles was the villain, but make you root for that jerk anyway?

Reviews are done by fans and usually adults that _already have_ experience, and if the review is good, it means the scenes did not sound forced or contrived but seemed like actual adult experience. Stories falling into that category are what you must seek out, and then figure out for yourself why so many people agree that, for example, the romance (from meeting to consummation to breakup) did not feel contrived; the sexual aspect is rated "Hot" instead of "comically inept", the abusive boss seemed unrealistic, the man would cheat on his wife or the woman would try to murder her rival.

Obviously do not plagiarize scenes and dialogue; the point is to generalize for yourself, and invent for yourself, rules that these **good** stories seem to follow. So if you have never murdered anybody IRL, try to find three or four well-reviewed stories (by multiple authors) where characters murder other characters (preferably victims they know, not just a thug shooting somebody for fun). Then you have work to do: What do these murderers have in common? How bad is their grievance or greed or need to kill somebody? How long did the author have the character plan the murder? How detailed did the characters get in their plans? What did they do to keep their victims unaware? Importantly, what do you think was the most ridiculous thing the author got away with in writing this scene? (If watching a film you don't need the script, presume all the action and dialogue was written and focus on that.)

What you want to develop for yourself are _guidelines_ that you can use to keep your own fictional characters in one lane, without raising red flags or causing the suspension of disbelief: So look to authors that succeeded in this task and pick apart how they did it.

Real experience is over-rated. Authors write scenes of crime, cold-blooded murder, rapes, torture, paedophilia, assassination, genocide, death camps, slavery and all sorts of magic and interactions with aliens, they have never experienced and would never commit or want to experience. In the case of American Southern slavery, for example, they are **always** stealing the experience from the historical accounts, hearsay and diaries; nobody is left alive that was actually a slave or slave owner back then.

In your case, steal the experiences you need from adult writers whose work is praised by other adults. Something "real" must be in there, or it would not have resonated so strongly with their audience.

Learn to watch/read it without becoming absorbed in the fantasy; learn to stay above it, in an analytic mode. Figure out what the tricks or boundaries must be, and turn those into a guideline for yourself. If this sounds hard, it is: but you will get better at it within weeks. Unlike life, you don't have to grow up to become an expert on office scenes, or sex scenes, or crime scenes (and approximately 0% of fiction writers have actually committed any serious crime or assault that they have written; that is all stolen experience from other works or police reports, or other real-life reports).

Do not take notes, go directly to the next step: generalization into **guidelines** for your writing. Also, your guidelines do not necessarily apply to anybody else, they are about how **you** understand and enjoy stories, so you can write stories that sound good to you and you would enjoy.

Do not plagiarize, even if the words sound perfect: When that happens, try to figure out **_why_** exactly they sound so god damn perfect. Because listen: if you can pull a guideline out of that, to help you create your own original god damn perfect lines, it can be priceless.

Original score: 1