Write What you Know and what does that even mean.
May 10, 2023 1:10:34 GMT -6
Post by saintofm on May 10, 2023 1:10:34 GMT -6
Short answer: Just watch this video by Red of Overly Sarcastic Productions. Also one from RR Martin.
Long Answer as the rest of this thread.
When writing (or even acting as used as an example used in the video) you have to put your experiences and your knowledge into your work. You can then expand from there. If you don't know about that aspect, there is research. In the end its about trying to know enough about a subject you can make it believable to the reader. Not necessarily realistic (say Cloning Dinosaurs) but you can add elements of a real thing for a not real thing (the animal training of the Raptors in Jurassic World).
Of the experience part some examples (and they won't all be from steven King, but most are):
1-3. All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, and The Big Red One written and directed by Samuel Fuller used their experiaaces in both WW1 and WW2 respectively to inspire their workds. Lee Harvy, the star of the latter, even recreated his reaction of getting shot in the Pacific Front in one of the battle scenes of the film.
4. An American Tail: You can probably guess that Spielberg probably had to do alot of research, but he named the main character Fievel after his grandfather's Yiddish name. He also based the scene of Fievel looking in on a classroom of American school mice children in a class based on something his grandfather saying that was the only way a Jewish kid at the time to get an education; even when it snowed.
5. Orson Wells used his experience fighting alongside fellow communists in the Spanish Civil War and the horrors he saw his brothers in arms commit to inspire both Animal House and 1984.
6. The Rock played a Gay guy in the film "Be Cool" and did it in a way where If he was gay he be totally confident in himself and played up that aspect of his personality.
7. A Gundam Wing Example used in the above video: Most of us don't have experience of being 15 and our beloved giant warmachine being destroyed, but voice Actor Scott McNeal used his experience of his wife accidentally backing over his motorcycle in her car to chancel the horror and sorrow Due had.
8. Neo Genisis Evangelion has alot of mental torment the main cast go through because of Hideaki Anno was going through alot of that at the time.
9. Hellsing has alot of guns and gun action in it because its creator Kouta Hirano is a gun otaku.
10. The reason Naruto has a Strained Relationship with his son Boruto in the sequel series is because he spent too much time on his worked during his run on Naruto and less time with his family.
11+++++++: Steven King frequently says it was either write a book r go to therapy, so to keep this from being a super long list:
Carry: He never knew a kid with psychic powers, but he was a High School teacher and saw plenty of kids like Carrie that people would torment and get away with tormenting day in and day out.
Pet Cemetary: King at one point had a house by a super busy highway, and there was a nearby Pet Semitary" that they buried the countless animals that became road kill. As long as he lived there he feared one of his kids would be killed in that road.
The Shining: A combination of his fear of the disintegration of the family and his struggles with Alcoholism.
On the Research side
1 and 2. Tremors: While studding earth worms to get an idea for the Graboid monsters, the creators found out they have hairs to move around so just incorporated that with hundreds of spikes on the monsters. The character of Burt was played by Michael Gross, who is not a big fan of guns. But he wanted to play the character right, so did his research. Actual gun aficionados actually like the portrayal because even if he is a paranoid survivalist, he constantly practices safe gun handling (including not pointing one at anyone).
3. Stan Lee based Charles Xavier and Magneto on civil Rights leaders Martin Luthor King and Malcolm X to bring people closer to to the civil rights struggles, and help others that may have felt alienated.
4. Maus by Art Spiegelman was based on his grandfather's experience as a Holocaust survivor as a way to get closer to him.
5. The Early Assassin Creed games often got alot of praise by historians as it allowed them for the first time to see buildings and archecture that hadn't been around for hundreds of years by the nature of the game's mechanics. They had to do alot of research to get those details right.
6. When creating the OVA for Gun Smith Cats, the production team when to Chicago to get reference photos, record a Cobra muscle car, and to shoot some firearms to get their look and feel right to the point the only thing that is missing in the three episodes is the city's crippling traffic.
7. Andy Weir never worked a day of his life for NASA, but studied space, astronomy, and space travel enough to get people who worked for it to wonder if he did with his Debut Novel "the Martian."
Writing what you know means you can always know more, and if you get enough off the spit of it across people will like and respect you for it.
The problem is when you don't.
I was never a solider, but I had friends that are veterans and I know that a bunch of them can't handle military movies because they get enough things wrong to just annoy them. One of my friends military job was bomb disposal, and he thought there were so many idiotic things going on in the Film the Hurt Locker he had to wonder if anyone did their research.
Thoughts and ideas?
Long Answer as the rest of this thread.
When writing (or even acting as used as an example used in the video) you have to put your experiences and your knowledge into your work. You can then expand from there. If you don't know about that aspect, there is research. In the end its about trying to know enough about a subject you can make it believable to the reader. Not necessarily realistic (say Cloning Dinosaurs) but you can add elements of a real thing for a not real thing (the animal training of the Raptors in Jurassic World).
Of the experience part some examples (and they won't all be from steven King, but most are):
1-3. All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, and The Big Red One written and directed by Samuel Fuller used their experiaaces in both WW1 and WW2 respectively to inspire their workds. Lee Harvy, the star of the latter, even recreated his reaction of getting shot in the Pacific Front in one of the battle scenes of the film.
4. An American Tail: You can probably guess that Spielberg probably had to do alot of research, but he named the main character Fievel after his grandfather's Yiddish name. He also based the scene of Fievel looking in on a classroom of American school mice children in a class based on something his grandfather saying that was the only way a Jewish kid at the time to get an education; even when it snowed.
5. Orson Wells used his experience fighting alongside fellow communists in the Spanish Civil War and the horrors he saw his brothers in arms commit to inspire both Animal House and 1984.
6. The Rock played a Gay guy in the film "Be Cool" and did it in a way where If he was gay he be totally confident in himself and played up that aspect of his personality.
7. A Gundam Wing Example used in the above video: Most of us don't have experience of being 15 and our beloved giant warmachine being destroyed, but voice Actor Scott McNeal used his experience of his wife accidentally backing over his motorcycle in her car to chancel the horror and sorrow Due had.
8. Neo Genisis Evangelion has alot of mental torment the main cast go through because of Hideaki Anno was going through alot of that at the time.
9. Hellsing has alot of guns and gun action in it because its creator Kouta Hirano is a gun otaku.
10. The reason Naruto has a Strained Relationship with his son Boruto in the sequel series is because he spent too much time on his worked during his run on Naruto and less time with his family.
11+++++++: Steven King frequently says it was either write a book r go to therapy, so to keep this from being a super long list:
Carry: He never knew a kid with psychic powers, but he was a High School teacher and saw plenty of kids like Carrie that people would torment and get away with tormenting day in and day out.
Pet Cemetary: King at one point had a house by a super busy highway, and there was a nearby Pet Semitary" that they buried the countless animals that became road kill. As long as he lived there he feared one of his kids would be killed in that road.
The Shining: A combination of his fear of the disintegration of the family and his struggles with Alcoholism.
On the Research side
1 and 2. Tremors: While studding earth worms to get an idea for the Graboid monsters, the creators found out they have hairs to move around so just incorporated that with hundreds of spikes on the monsters. The character of Burt was played by Michael Gross, who is not a big fan of guns. But he wanted to play the character right, so did his research. Actual gun aficionados actually like the portrayal because even if he is a paranoid survivalist, he constantly practices safe gun handling (including not pointing one at anyone).
3. Stan Lee based Charles Xavier and Magneto on civil Rights leaders Martin Luthor King and Malcolm X to bring people closer to to the civil rights struggles, and help others that may have felt alienated.
4. Maus by Art Spiegelman was based on his grandfather's experience as a Holocaust survivor as a way to get closer to him.
5. The Early Assassin Creed games often got alot of praise by historians as it allowed them for the first time to see buildings and archecture that hadn't been around for hundreds of years by the nature of the game's mechanics. They had to do alot of research to get those details right.
6. When creating the OVA for Gun Smith Cats, the production team when to Chicago to get reference photos, record a Cobra muscle car, and to shoot some firearms to get their look and feel right to the point the only thing that is missing in the three episodes is the city's crippling traffic.
7. Andy Weir never worked a day of his life for NASA, but studied space, astronomy, and space travel enough to get people who worked for it to wonder if he did with his Debut Novel "the Martian."
Writing what you know means you can always know more, and if you get enough off the spit of it across people will like and respect you for it.
The problem is when you don't.
I was never a solider, but I had friends that are veterans and I know that a bunch of them can't handle military movies because they get enough things wrong to just annoy them. One of my friends military job was bomb disposal, and he thought there were so many idiotic things going on in the Film the Hurt Locker he had to wonder if anyone did their research.
Thoughts and ideas?
You add them to your profile as you do them around the forum.
