by Rachelle de Bretagne

Created on: August 12, 2010

It's extremely difficult to describe emotions that you have no experience of. Those writers who do this often rely upon what they glean from popular media, or their reading experience, and the pitfalls of this is that they cannot put real heart-felt emotion into an epic piece of creative writing as effectively as those who experience it. Creative writing goes further than that, and there are all kinds of areas where writers fail, through lack of knowledge. Writing about what you know helps to avoid the pitfalls of guesswork and helps the writing to be more realistic, and for readers to believe what they are reading.

Historical fact.

Historical creative writing is popular, though how do you tackle this not knowing basic things about that historical period? The problem here is that mistakes happen in describing ambiance, attire, and actually setting the mood for the creative piece. If you have knowledge of costume, then the flow of the writing is much easier. Imagine an historical writer describing a maidservant of the 19th century dressing in the morning and donning her panty-hose. It wouldn't sound authentic and would certainly put into question the research a writer has done to create a story which gives authentic detail. It is vital to get facts right. Although creative writers may believe they have creative license to put in whatever they like, the consequences are that they come across as a writer with little substance.

Society and class.

Unless you understand how people like within a set society or class, how can you describe it? Those who do not study the setting for their work often fail because their knowledge is limited. Those who have studied would be able to blend their knowledge into the woven fabric of the story, and write richer text.

Customs and habits.

The customs of one country may be quite different from another. Often the writer who targets several countries with their submissions makes the mistake of not editing their work to reflect the differences in culture. For example, if writing about the way people behave, it really is necessary to understand cultural differences to make the fiction work. A typical example of well researched fiction would be the story used in the Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. Within the pages of this book, the magnificent detail is based on the author's knowledge of the customs and habits of the culture surrounding the story. Carefully intermingled into the story are images which give the reader a spectacular

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