Write on Manitoulin

 Also, Write What You Don't Know

A little while ago I wrote a post about writing what you know. Well, here's a great related quote I found last month on author Nino Ricci's website:

"I once heard the Saskatchewan writer Ven Begamudré describe his writing thus: “I write what I know, and what I don’t know I research, and what I can’t research I make up.”

This is why I love writing fiction! I get to be a sort of god who makes up worlds and people and events, while simultaneously being the outlet for those very people. Through their words, temperaments and lifestyles, they tell me what they might logically (or illogically) do in various situations. Often I have to stop what I'm doing and slow my mind enough to listen to my characters, pay attention to how they are in their world. And then, whether or not it's where I thought the story was going, I cooperate with what they've conveyed. Sometimes I think, "Of course that's what has to happen!" while at other times I don't know where a character's "suggestion" will take me or the story. I go with it anyway to see what happens. Great fun. Also hard and interesting work that can require research and pausing, asking for others' input, more research, more pausing. And much rewriting, of course.

Writing fiction, even for a relative neophyte like me, is an interesting weaving of what I know, what I find through research, and what I make up. It takes a while to get the end result, but I do enjoy the ride.