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Q&A Writing about a topic which you don't have personal experience in

Research is your friend. Most of the (fiction) books that I enjoyed the most show how thoroughly researched they are. On virtually every topic you can find first-person accounts describing the exp...

posted 6y ago by Tom‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T09:52:23Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39312
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Tom‭ · 2019-12-08T09:52:23Z (almost 5 years ago)
Research is your friend. Most of the (fiction) books that I enjoyed the most show how thoroughly researched they are.

On virtually every topic you can find first-person accounts describing the experience. Read them, compare them, distill the essence from them. And yes, this includes death experiences, look for people who were revived after being almost dead.

A lot of writers keep extensive notes and libraries on virtually every topic imaginable. I'm writing a short story placed in WW2 right now, something I haven't experienced, and I've made extensive use of online resources as well as my library including a 2000 page volume on WW2 that I bought and read two decades ago. The war was long before my time, but I can fill my story with details up to the type of wood used in the dining room of that passenger ship my characters are taking at one point, and I can write about the experiences and thoughts of my characters in this time by drawing the driving thoughts from the many eye-witness accounts available.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-10-10T11:54:06Z (about 6 years ago)
Original score: 2