Jane Austen refused to write about anything that she didn't or couldn't have knowledge of. One of her trademarks is that she never wrote a single scene in which a woman wasn't present, because she felt that as a woman, she didn't have any idea of how men behave with each other. I'm really starting to understand this.
There's plenty of things I don't know about that I'm okay with writing. For example, I've never worked at a construction site, but I can make assumptions about how people behave there (some of it taken from TV and movies, which, I'll admit, aren't the best sources of depictions of reality) and I can look up the technical details to make it sound good. It helps that I'm writing for the Doctor Who fandom, because it's very fast and loose with its reality.
However, I've been working on a story in which I want two of the male characters to realize that they're in love, and I have absolutely no idea how to do that. Being a heteroromantic whose gay friends have always been either single or already attached, I don't have any experience here. And it seems so cliche to do that "two people get close, gaze into each other's eyes, and realize there's something deeper there" thing that happens in so many books and movies.
I want the scene to not include sex or physical contact - the scene needs to be the revelation, leaving the reader to imagine that they take things further later. I suppose it would be even worse for me if I did include sex, because I'm absolutely clueless there. I've read some slash erotica, but I've always wondered how much of it is accurate (or possible!) and how much is wishful thinking.
Ah, the difficulties of being a writer!
There's plenty of things I don't know about that I'm okay with writing. For example, I've never worked at a construction site, but I can make assumptions about how people behave there (some of it taken from TV and movies, which, I'll admit, aren't the best sources of depictions of reality) and I can look up the technical details to make it sound good. It helps that I'm writing for the Doctor Who fandom, because it's very fast and loose with its reality.
However, I've been working on a story in which I want two of the male characters to realize that they're in love, and I have absolutely no idea how to do that. Being a heteroromantic whose gay friends have always been either single or already attached, I don't have any experience here. And it seems so cliche to do that "two people get close, gaze into each other's eyes, and realize there's something deeper there" thing that happens in so many books and movies.
I want the scene to not include sex or physical contact - the scene needs to be the revelation, leaving the reader to imagine that they take things further later. I suppose it would be even worse for me if I did include sex, because I'm absolutely clueless there. I've read some slash erotica, but I've always wondered how much of it is accurate (or possible!) and how much is wishful thinking.
Ah, the difficulties of being a writer!
Comments
I think the mark of a good writer is being able to write about things outside of your own scope of experience. It's easy to write about things you have lived through yourself, and much more difficult to write about things you have little to no experience with. One of the hardest things I ever had to write was a chapter where one character gives birth-I have literally no personal experience with pregnancy or childbirth, so I researched the shit out of it, and had a handful of mums read it to see if it struck the right chords (the write chords?). If you're anxious about it, maybe try seeking out a beta who is LGBT, so that you can bounce ideas off of them.
Good luck!
I probably will need to reach out to some of my LGBT friends to ask them some questions. It's tough, though, to come out and ask, "Hey, can you describe to me your experiences?" :)
*HUGS*
*HUGS*
We - you and I - also differ a lot in that your writing, your plots are a lot more emotional and mine are a lot more procedural, and that probably explains why our methods are so different. :)