How to Write What You Don’t Know

By Becky Muth

One bit of advice every author hears in his or her lifetime is write what you know. That’s great, but what happens when you feel inspired to write about something you don’t know? What happens when characters take us to the places we’ve never been and situations we’ve yet to experience? You don’t have to be a science fiction or fantasy writer to build new worlds or put your characters in unfamiliar situations.

Authors write what they don’t know every day. Cozy mystery author Susan Boyer, unlike the main character in her Liz Talbot series, isn’t a private investigator who carries her Sig 9 in her Kate Spade handbag. Elizabeth Spann Craig isn’t an octogenarian retired schoolteacher, but the titular character of her Myrtle Clover Series is. And unlike Vanessa, one of the main characters in my novelette, Screaming Jenny, I’m not a history buff with a dislike for technology.

The more I write, the more I learn to sit back and enjoy the ride when my characters drag me into the great unknown. In the beginning, I fought the characters of my work in progress (WIP) on this to the point where I would stop writing for weeks at a time. Having learned my lesson, now learning new things is one of my favorite parts of the writing process.

When writing what I don’t know, I like to follow my imagination as far as I can. I’ve never run through the woods while clutching a human heart, been buried alive, or hired the Pinkertons. This didn’t stop me from writing about those situations. When I reached the part I didn’t know, then I did the research.

Here are some tips to help you write what you don’t know:

Go to the library. American comic book writer Stan Lee says the library card is the most important card in his wallet. It should be the most important card in every writer’s wallet. Although Google and Wikipedia offer endless amounts of information, for me there’s nothing like cracking open a book and jotting notes down in a journal within the hushed confines of my local library.

Talk to experts who have the information you need. Talking to an expert will often give you more than enough information to add realistic details to your WIP. At the 2015 Mid-Atlantic Fiction Writers Institute conference, keynote speaker Tess Gerritsen spoke about researching her novel, GRAVITY, which included talking with NASA scientists.

Read random Wikipedia articles. Have you ever used the “Random article” feature on Wikipedia? I’m a little A.D.D. so for me, this feature is good and bad. The good news is, you can learn all sorts of things you don’t know. On the downside, you can waste hours learning all sorts of things that are useless for enhancing your current WIP, but that may inspire future plots.

A final word of advice is that if you don’t know something and are unable to research it, don’t lie about it. Authors often walk a fine line between fiction and falsehood. It’s better to omit something you don’t know than to mislead your readers. After all, a reader who loves your book will tell others about it. Word-of-mouth is always more genuine than any type of social media advertisement.

The next time a character drags you into a situation you don’t know, strap into your seat because you’re in for roller coaster ride of twists and turns into new literary territory. What you learn along the way could mean the difference between a mediocre plot and a blockbuster storyline.

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Becky Muth lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband and their two sons. She loves attending events where she can interact with other writers and readers. When she's not writing or reading, Becky enjoys spending time with her family, knitting, and drawing pet portraits. You can visit her blog at beckymuth.com or follow her on most social media networks under Author Becky Muth. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorbeckymuth/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/authorbeckymuth/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorbeckymuth/ Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/authorbeckymuth/

Delighted by Deadlines

By Elizabeth S. Craig

  

I live by deadlines.  I’ve noticed that most writers have a love-hate relationship with deadlines. 

Actually, most everyone lives with deadlines, although they may not think of them that way.  Deadlines to buy a present for an anniversary?  Christmas?  Life itself comes with a deadline.

I started getting serious about personal deadlines about twelve years ago.   I had a scamp of a preschooler at the time--the kind of kid you affix deadbolts on your doors for and hide your keys from.  I had a baby who was just getting into the Cheerio stage.

I decided to set a deadline for myself.  I wanted to write a book by the end of the year. 

I was busy.  But when are we not busy?  It's just that the busyness changes from sleep loss and diaper changing to carpools and soccer games to college visits to work demands to travel-packed retirements. 

I decided there would never be that fictional cabin in the mountains with the scenic view and the complete and utter lack of a daily agenda. 

I've used deadlines three important ways in my life:

1) The first way I've used deadlines is to get work done.  Writers talk a lot about goals.  We have project goals and word count goals. Goals are these sorts of nebulous things.  They are vague and forgiving.  Goals are shockingly similar to wishes...I want to lose ten pounds or exercise three days a week.  I want to learn Spanish.  I want to win the lottery.  There's an air of unreality to them.  They're not solid.

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Deadlines break goals into manageable bits.  My goal was: I want to write a book.  My deadlines were:  Each day, I'll write a page. 

2) The second way I've used deadlines is to maintain focus.  At first, distractions were easy to avoid...the ringing phone didn't have to be answered...there was an answering machine for that. 

Then the distractions became sneakier...the internet. Email.  Twitter.  And the biggest, baddest time suck of them all….Facebook. 

With deadlines, however, I knew I had work to accomplish first.  This stubborn determination motivated me to get up earlier and earlier.  Until finally I settled on the hour between four and five a.m.  There aren’t many distractions then, I’ve found.  

3) The third way I've used deadlines is to brainstorm long-term planning.

Most of us have ideas for ways we'd like to enjoy our future: travel more, further our education, or develop a hobby or interest. I found the only way to make plans come to pass was by breaking them down into bits, and setting deadlines for each of them. 

  

Being a writer means that I'm easily distracted by bright shiny objects.  It means a daily fight to maintain focus and stay on task. Deadlines, and the three ways I've taken to using them, have proven my best tool for doing so.

  

Deadlines may have a bad rap, but they’re actually tools to help us succeed, focus, and grow. 

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Elizabeth writes the Southern Quilting mysteries; her books in this series are Quilt or Innocence, Knot What it Seams, Quilt Trip, Shear Trouble, Tying the Knot and Memphis Barbeque mysteries; her books in this series are Delicious and Suspicious, Finger Lickin’ Dead, Hickory Smoked Homicide and Rubbed Out for Penguin Random House and the Myrtle Clover series for Midnight Ink and independently; Her books include Pretty is as Pretty Dies, Progressive Dinner Deadly, Dyeing Shame, A Body in the Backyard, Death at a Drop-In, A Body at Book Club, Death Pays a Visit, and Body at Bunco. She blogs at ElizabethSpannCraig.com/blog , named as one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers.  She curates links on Twitter as @elizabethscraig that are later shared in the free search engine WritersKB.com. Elizabeth makes her home in Matthews, North Carolina, with her husband and two teenage children. 

Love Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry (To Our Characters)

In honor of Valentine’s Day, Creative Director Gary Fearon is honored to relinquish Tune-In Tuesday to a mystery writer whose books you’ll love, Elizabeth S. Craig.

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by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

We all love our characters. What’s not to love? They start out as our own creations, then suddenly come to life on the page. They’re our very own Pinocchios.

But loving our characters means hurting our characters. Otherwise, there just wouldn’t be a story for them.  Who’d read a book where the characters happily go from beginning to end with no problems to overcome or challenges to face?

Let’s take it from our characters’ point of view. What makes our characters happiest? My guess is having more adventures. And the best way to ensure they have more adventures is by writing books that readers love and want more of—books that aren’t boring. Our characters need setbacks.

Great ways to mess up our characters’ lives (at least temporarily):

Big problems:  Depending on your genre, this could mean a murder, a crippling addiction, the end of the world, or the death of a loved one.

Medium-sized problems:  What other trouble can we toss in our characters’ way?  How about a job loss, an aging parent moving in with them, or an unexpected medical issue?

Smaller problems:  To create tension in every scene, we can also build in smaller conflicts—characters who rub our protagonist the wrong way, flat tires, and arguments with friends or spouses.

Remember, we’re doing these things for our characters’ own good.  We’re ensuring they live to fight another day…loving them enough to make them suffer.  Because, for writers, love means never having to say you’re sorry.

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Elizabeth’s latest book, Hickory Smoked Homicide, released November 1, 2011.  Elizabeth writes the Memphis Barbeque series for Penguin/Berkley (as Riley Adams), the Southern Quilting mysteries (2012) for Penguin/NAL, and the Myrtle Clover series for Midnight Ink and independently. She blogs daily at Mystery Writing is Murder. 

Follower her on Twitter.