I want to write a book, or some kind of short story, but I notice a lot of good books/short stories contain a lot of in depth knowledge about birds, horses and trees. While these subjects do flesh out the world and make the author look more intelligent, I have zero interest in horses or trees or bird watching. It's never just "a bird" it's always highly specific. I am embarrassed that I don't understand birds or botany. On top of this you really have to understand what plants go together with other plants to create a lifelike scenery, and you need to know the habitats and preferred perching places of specific birds. This is all exhausting information.
Tell me how I'm supposed to write when this is the bar to entry.
Am I actually supposed to have a personal keen interest in birds? Am I doomed if I don't know this stuff?
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birds > trees > horses
Good ranking, but I would put trees above birds.
Show or tell bullshit
>google ecosystems/habitats of <insert region of LARP>
And suddenly you have it all.
what? stop being an autist or do research. personally I just use ChatGPT for researching topics I have little idea about but be careful of AI hallucination.
Write about a bleak and unnatural city where all birds and trees have been thoroughly evicted from every corner and crevice, and every character has forgotten the names of the birds and trees. There you go, solved your problem, now get writing.
Don’t worry, didn’t actually sage your post, that was for a far worse thread. I want to see other solution to your stupid dilemma.
What are you even talking about? Why do you need to describe everything in detail? Why can't you do a quick googling when you're in need of some particular knowledge? You can just make up fictional things anyway.
I think that if a book is lacking in specific detail, then it's just not as good of a book. A good writer should be able to craft a scenery like a good painter. A real master of the craft should at any point in time be able to dispense with the knowledge of anything that need be willfully described to give the reader a pocket world to escape into.
You can make it as a guitar player as a 3 chord punk guitarist, but a truly great guitar player is capable of 4 finger tapping, and articulating notes. There are a lot of stories out there, but why would you even make one unless you were trying to make something great?
It’s in your head. It’s not a barrier to entry.
Just write fantasy/sci-fi and invent birds, trees and other animals as you like.
Procrastination is a helluva drug
I’m always amazed at adults who know nothing of trees and birds. If
you don’t have a natural curiosity for such things I doubt you could ever write anything meaningful
Nabokov agrees.
>his once-student and later annotator Alfred Appel told a story about a friend who went to see Nabokov when he was a professor at Cornell. Nabokov directed the student to look out the window. “Do you know the name of that tree?” Nabokov is said to have asked. The friend replied that he did not. Nabokov’s response was, “Then you’ll never be a writer.”
Didn’t know this but I sincerely believe it to be a fact.
Nabokov once asked a student, “have you ever slurped down 37 wieners in one sitting?” When the student replied that he hadn’t, Nabokov reportedly said “then I’m going to give whatever you write a bad review.”
Nabokov once asked a student, "How many
Cormac threads are on IQfy right now ?"
The student replied that he did not know.
Nabokov's response was, " Then you'll never
be a lurker."
The student spat and rode under the blood red western sky.
Tolkien was also a tree autist, im never been a botany guy myself but I do know my birds, I even have a wooden bird collection
you are literally autistic, also moronic
This bothers me too but I’m writing anyway and I think I’m good at it. I don’t think Bukowski knew shit about nature but I still love his books.
Just be a chad and don't explain shit. Hemingway invented the iceberg theory precisely because he didn't feel like wasting time learning things he's not interested in in order to make his stories "more realistic."
You as a storyteller do not owe your audience realism, nor do people demand it. Just give them a good reading experience.
Agreed
I feel this too. I'm glad I'm only interested in writing scifi/fantasy, cause I can just make everything up. I don't know how I'd trust myself to write about any real place I haven't lived in and do it justice.