Sunday, May 5, 2013

Wisdom Comes From Experience

The other day I was invited by one of my brother's friends to go to his boxing club with him and a group of our friends and go hit some bags.

Any normal person would think, 'that sounds like fun, let's do it!'. Or, conversely, 'that sounds boring, I'll pass.' However, my reaction was more to the tune of, 'ohmygoodness this will be great for writing research.'

And now you know one of the key differences between an author and the rest of  the population: whether or not we want to do something, we will try it once for the sake of research.

Shooting guns? Writing research.

Skiing a double-black diamond in Colorado at over 15,000 feet? Writing research.

Archery? Writing research.

Wilderness survival training? Writing research.

CPR certification? Writing research.

You get the idea.

The old adage, 'write what you know', is true in this case. I mean, there are some things that an author can't exactly experience in the name of research - for example, a male author going into childbirth. He'll have to ask his lady friends. But generally, when it comes to things that we write about, authors want to know what it's really like in life.

Hence me posting this. I write a lot of fight scenes; it comes with the territory of writing dystopian and science fiction novels. I mean, in The Artist I swear someone gets into a fight or a riot or something at least every other day. It's crazy. But, if you couldn't tell, I've never actually punched someone in the face, nor been punched. When I know how it feels to have your fist hit an object, be it a wall, person, or punching bag, it makes it a hundred times easier to write. Unfortunately, I won't be sparring (probably fortunate for my face), but I'll still be able to learn combinations, offensive and defensive moves, and how someone my size and stature would fight, which can come in handy for characters like Collins, Eire, Gloria, and to a lesser extent Ollie and Razzo. I'll have to let you know how it goes.

If you're a writer and you want to hear about some of my writing experiences (or a reader who wants to hear funny stories about my unfortunate life events), go ahead and comment below!

Some examples:

~Passing out (that was a fun one)

~Shooting guns

~Wilderness survival

Hoping for no black eyes,
Brie

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