92
votes
Accepted
Is Wikipedia Trustworthy?
Wikipedia is a crowd-sourced site where anybody can contribute, just like this one. Wikipedia strives for verifiability and neutrality and has an active user community, but that doesn't mean that ...
- 21.5k
75
votes
How to tell readers that I know my story is factually incorrect?
I simply let my character survive a wound that he shouldn't have survived, and then left a note at the bottom about what would have really happened.
As a reader, this would break my immersion and ...
- 103k
59
votes
Writing a character who is an expert in something that I can't know
Since the subject matter on which the character is an expert is specific to the world that you created and not related to any real world knowledge or faith, you already know everything there is to ...
- 10.8k
46
votes
How to write a character that knows a lot about explosives?
You don't need to be able to build homemade explosive to describe a character who does.
You just need to give the reader the impression that the character knows what he/she's up to. Most of the ...
- 15.9k
45
votes
Is Wikipedia Trustworthy?
Things changed. Several reviews on the reliability of Wikipedia concluded it is about as accurate as more standard encyclopaedias, while having more content. I too have heard that Wikipedia should not ...
- 551
44
votes
Accepted
How does a writer go about consulting experts?
I had to do the same thing for my novel only instead of a doctor, I needed a vet. It was only one scene but it was very detailed so I needed to get the information bang on.
I think the key to ...
- 9,923
41
votes
Is it okay to majorly distort historical facts while writing a fiction story?
Is it okay? Well, it's likely legal (if the person is long dead anyway, and probably even if they're alive). You can do it. You might even get it published.
For a large number of readers, the ...
- 32.4k
34
votes
Accepted
Character is an expert on something I'm not
The answer is research, research, and more research. I'm not an expert on horseback riding, or sword-fighting, or ruling a country. The only way I can write convincingly about those subjects is by ...
33
votes
How to write a character that knows a lot about explosives?
"Did you know if you mixed equal parts of gasoline and frozen orange juice concentrate you can make napalm?" - Tyler Durden, Fight Club
But guess what, it doesn't work. The author made that up. But ...
- 6,265
32
votes
How to tell readers that I know my story is factually incorrect?
Sometimes writers make mistakes. Sometimes they didn't know something. Sometimes they chose to ignore a fact because it got in the way of their story. This is so common, TV tropes has a whole family ...
25
votes
Pregnancy in writing - A bit difficult
As someone else has said, every pregnancy is different.
I am currently eight months pregnant, have been pregnant before, and pretty much every woman my age I know seems to be pregnant right now, so ...
- 3,557
23
votes
Is it okay to majorly distort historical facts while writing a fiction story?
Getting your facts straight is one of the rules of literature. As with the other rules of literature, it is one thing to know the rule and know when to break it, but another thing to ignore the rule ...
- 1,581
22
votes
How to tell readers that I know my story is factually incorrect?
Many authors do include that kind of information outside of the story itself. Typically it goes in a foreword or afterword, which are essays the author finds useful to include with the story that can ...
- 3,137
22
votes
Distorting historical facts for a historical fiction story
Hot Water:
If you are going down that rabbit hole, you need to be SUPER careful. Writing in a historical period pretty much implies you stay consistent with history, except for the most trivial of ...
- 13.7k
21
votes
Character is an expert on something I'm not
Ask an expert.
Obviously, research is an important first step. But there's only a finite amount of research you can do, and without intimate knowledge of the subject, you have no way of knowing ...
- 11.4k
20
votes
Distorting historical facts for a historical fiction story
I assume you mean something along the lines of Napoleon winning at Waterloo, or the British not getting caught with their pants down at King's Mountain and Cow Pens?
It's usually easier to alter your ...
- 5,292
20
votes
Accepted
What level of understanding should you have of Quantum Physics to write a hard science fiction novel?
To echo the comment from F1Krazy, you only need knowledge of quantum physics if your story depends upon quantum physics. You could write about information technology, orbital mechanics, synthetic ...
- 5,257
18
votes
Accepted
Distorting historical facts for a historical fiction story
Changing history is slippery because it's a complex weave of causes and consequences, and even an expert might not know the full picture. I agree with Zeiss Ikon in their answer, the devil is in the ...
- 996
17
votes
Is Wikipedia Trustworthy?
I like to say that broadly speaking, Wikipedia is mostly trustworthy when statements are cited, but it's never a source.
There are several parts to this.
Wikipedia is broadly and mostly trustworthy -...
- 3,754
16
votes
Is Wikipedia Trustworthy?
No.
Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Wikipedia can be edited by anyone at any time. This means that any information it contains at any particular time could be vandalism. Biographies of living ...
- 299
16
votes
How to tell readers that I know my story is factually incorrect?
"I simply let my character survive a wound that he shouldn't have survived"
Real people do this all the time, one of my favourites was a guy in Alaska who accidentally severed his own jugular vein ...
- 10.4k
14
votes
How to write a character that knows a lot about explosives?
The O.S.S. and I
My great-uncle wrote a book about his experience with the Office of Strategic Services in WWII, full of stories of espionage and clandestine acts. There is even a chapter titled "...
- 371
14
votes
Is Wikipedia Trustworthy?
Wikipedia policy requires that editors cite sources to support their edits. However, there's no systematic process for checking that editors are accurately representing the sources they cite, or that ...
- 401
14
votes
How does a writer go about consulting experts?
I actually find it somewhat intriguing that you're asking this on Stack Exchange.
Consider that by now, Stack Exchange has over 170 different sites on different subjects, which aim to draw ...
- 3,754
14
votes
How to tell readers that I know my story is factually incorrect?
A really good example of this is The Martian, where the key event for Watney being stranded on Mars is a violent storm which damages equipment, injures Watney and threatens the lander. Andy Weir was ...
- 2,294
13
votes
Is Wikipedia Trustworthy?
The idea that anyone can edit Wikipedia is often put forward as a bad thing, but with Wikipedia it's part of the peer review process and this happens a lot faster than it does with printed ...
13
votes
How to research sex for writing?
You might find that research isn't quite so important. If you're describing a banquet, you don't need to picture how the guests chew and swallow their food.
For the scene with the two guys, you can ...
13
votes
Interviewing a person for a character
"I'm just curious" is not a very compelling argument, especially when you're emailing a random stranger who's probably too busy to answer every such email that enters his inbox. "I'm writing a book", ...
- 10.9k
13
votes
Is it okay to majorly distort historical facts while writing a fiction story?
Shakespeare did it. Richard III was not a homicidal maniac killing young princes. He was an able king.
The movie Fatherland presents an alternate history where WWII never happened, Hitler is an able ...
- 12.3k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible