Batblog

Writing What I Don't Know

I've just discovered another reason why starting myself off with a fanfiction was probably the best thing that I could have done. You see, I recently writing a passage of The Krimson Traitor where I had to describe a piece of clothing for one of the Krimson. To write that passage, I had to ask myself "well, what would they use to make their cloth?" "Well, they're from the Redwall world's equivalent of North America, so they'd use cotton; easy." Then I had to ask myself "in contrast to what? What do the Mossflower creatures use to make cloth?" And that's when I had to stop myself, because I didn't know.

A decade-and-a-half of my life spent reading this series and I hadn't the foggiest idea how to answer a question as simple as "what do Redwallers use to make cloth?" It was a realization that was both humbling and a little embarrassing, but it was also one that I needed an answer to if I wanted to have a complete picture of the setting. So I decided to hit the books (by which I mean Wikipedia) and do some research. I had to force myself to learn about something that it had never before occurred to me to look into ("What plants did people in Medieval England use to make their cloth?").

If I was writing something wholly original, it would have been so easy to just not bother. It would have been so easy to just write my story and construct my setting around things I already know. But this isn't my setting. If I run into something that I don't understand, I can't just bury my head in the sand and ignore it; I have to learn the thing I don't know so I can keep writing.

Now I just have to remember to keep this in mind when I get around to writing original work. I should grow and learn with the needs of my story, not mold the story around my own little comfortable bubble.