She plays the guitar. He runs with the wolves.

How many of you spend hours and hours researching what vegetables commoners would be able to afford during winter in the 18th Century, or how bad the storm was in January of 1956, in Sydney? What about how long the average person can hold their breath?

As a writer, we are always researching something, whether you’re a romance author, historical-fiction author, non-fiction author or fantasy author. 

Photo by Te NGuyen on Unsplash

Why do we do research? Are we trying to answer the hard questions? Sometimes, maybe. Are we trying to create a world where our readers feel like they’re living and breathing the story we’ve created within the pages? Absolutely.

In order to make your story believable, we need to research as much as we can. You don’t want to see my Google history … really! But sometimes, I think research can only take us so far.

I write mainly Fantasy and Science Fiction. A lot of the things I’m creating in my story, I have to imagine. No one can say they know what it’s like for a dragon to breathe into your face or what its scales feel like. These things can only imagined, but sometimes taking examples from our experiences can help bring these to life.

As writers, we need to go out into the world and experience as much as we can. I would never have known the satisfying pain of accomplishment you get in the tips of your fingers if I never started learning to play the guitar. I thought it was just about learning the chords, but it’s hard to get your fingers into those positions when you’re not used to it and after playing for ten minutes (I’m still learning), the strings dig into your fingers. I now have this wonderful experience I can write about.

If you’ve never watched True Memoirs of an International Assassin, you really should. He’s the type of writer I want to be. I want to make sure my story rings as true as it can and in order for me to do that, I believe I need to experience as much as I can. You can only empathise with someone if you’ve gone through something similar, so wouldn’t it be the same writing a book?

You’re not going to be able to experience everything, I mean as much as I want to know how painful it would be to get shot in the arm, I’m not going to go out looking to get shot. 

If your character likes to ride horses and you’ve never ridden one, go and find a place where you can learn to ride. If she paints, make a day of it. Experiment with oil paints and watercolours. If he’s a hacker, there are always some courses on the internet to teach you how to code. 

Don’t just research your stories. If you can, why not make that big batch of jam your nana is making in your story. You’ll experience the heat from the pot and the sticky, sweet aroma first hand. You’ll know just how sore your arm gets from stirring and pouring all that jam in the jars.

Go on. Get out of your chair and stop relying on Google so much. But before you do, let me know what amazing talents and experiences you already have in the comments below. 

What is one thing you’re going to experience to help your WIP come to life?

K.A. Hart is a born and bred Territorian who moved to Queensland and had no choice but to stay after her assimilation into Toowoomba's infamous, collective known as Quirky Quills.

Since then, K.A. Hart has had two short stories published. Stone Bearer, appears in Glimpses of Light and Tedious Tresses, in the As Time Goes By Mixed Blessings anthology. She is currently working on a fantasy novel.

Write What You Know

Write what you know. Adrian Plass puts this so eloquently. Well, maybe it's more on the comical side, but still ...

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

First you need to understand what's happening. Adrian is on a fast-flowing river boat ride at a theme park in Denmark with his two boys and four year old daughter. The ominously unstable, little round boat overturns and they are all thrown into the water.

Adrian isn't a swimmer, so you can imagine the panic and fear when he finds himself trapped under the water between the rim of the overturned boat and the bank of the river.

It's dark and disorienting under the water. The rising fear of drowning induces panic and confusion, but what of his kids? The two boys are strong swimmers. Hopefully they've been able to swim to safety. Kate, his four year old daughter might not have been so lucky and a deep sadness pulls him down further.

As fear and panic, confusion and sadness press all around him, a small corner of his mind is sitting back and watching the drama unfold. It ponders at the potential of using this situation in some sort of literary context. A magazine article or maybe it could be adapted into a fictional story later in the future.

The little man with a notebook who lives at the back of my head scribbled busily away, noting with interest the various nuances of panic and fear, the exact sensations that accompany drowning, and the emotions evoked by the imminent loss of those whom you love. He was just on the point of starting a new piece under the heading 'First Encounters with God' ...

 Jesus - Safe, Tender, Extreme

Adrian Plass

Everyone I talk to says the same thing. No one ever expected or thought we'd be in a global pandemic. It was one of those ideas in the far-fetched, dystopian/fantasy, world-building category that was way too complicated to even pick up off the floor from where you threw it, scrunched up in a ball.

But now ... isn't that what people say? Write what you know? All you have to do is read the titles of the news articles flooding the stratosphere and the possibilities are endless. New world currency - toilet paper. Gas masks and blind dates. Street-community living and the black-haired, introvert inside number 16.

The light bulb has flared twice for me in the last month with two new stories I'm dying (not literally. I am 100% healthy. No virus for me) to write. Okay, maybe three times with my black-hair introvert who lives in number 16.

Now, I know everyone has experienced something different during this situation. Some good, some not so good. But every experience can be drawn upon and expressed in our writing whether it's a fictional romance, suspenseful thriller or an inspirational, self-help, non-fiction book.

So, tell me, what ideas are brewing in that head of yours? How did you come up with it? Let me know in the comments below. I'm super excited to find out what ideas you've all come up with.

K.A. Hart is a born and bred Territorian who moved to Queensland and had no choice but to stay after her assimilation into Toowoomba’s infamous, collective known as Quirky Quills.

Since then, K.A. Hart has had two short stories published. Stone Bearer, appears in Glimpses of Light and Tedious Tresses, in the As Time Goes By Mixed Blessings anthology. She is currently working on a fantasy novel.

Searching for Treasure

I dig around – it must be in here somewhere. I’m sure it’s here…

I keep searching – going deeper – getting to the bottom and finding fluff and broken bits and things that haven’t seen the light of day for a while.

I strain my eyes – sometimes when looking for something, my eyes pass right over it. I’m sure you’ve done the same. So I look at each item and name it, just so I can’t miss what I’m looking for.

There’s a lot of stuff in here: treasures, junk, forgotten things, insights, incomplete thoughts, words from other people, words that belong to other people, half-started piece of writing…

Surely amidst all the experiences of my life, I can find something to write about. I have friends for whom there simply are not enough hours in the day to get it all on paper. But I rarely write like that. I have to discipline myself to stop and listen; to chew over experiences and insights; and to listen to what God is asking me to put on paper. It’s all too easy not to be a writer! I even struggle with calling myself a writer – more than 20 short pieces and a booklet in print and I hesitate with the epithet ‘author’. An author? Are you sure? I don’t write much really. In fact not at all sometimes.

And I realize, I’m letting my thoughts undermine my ‘work’ as a writer. And that leaves me wide open to the enemy undermining who I am and who I can become: ‘A testimony? You? With your safe little life? Ha, ha, you’re so ordinary.’
I’ve started two new jobs recently – it’s pretty busy. There’s not a lot of time to write, (or market my booklet!), and I’ve been wondering how to go about meeting my writing commitments. However, my new jobs provide me with plenty of driving time, mostly alone, and I try to discipline my mind to prayer and meditating on Bible verses.

I think over books I read last year – books that talk about who we are and who we can become with the power of God in our lives. Our application of faith to our lives is often so small – we see our lives empowered within the context of who we are and what we do with each day. Our Heavenly Father sees our lives empowered by His Spirit within the context of the world with all the resources of Heaven at our disposal.

So I refute the arguments that try to destroy my identity and my inheritance.
I have the Spirit of the Living God dwelling in me
I have all the resources of Heaven at my disposal and for the glory of God
I am being changed into the perfect image of Christ
I have a strong testimony about the work of God in me and in my life
And there is a whole world out there needing to hear about the saving grace, goodness and love of God through the written word

I am…a writer.