Which gun?

In a realistic firefight reload speed doesn't mean that much. If you run out of ammo, displace to somewhere with cover (or fall back to a secure area) and take your time to reload.

Less time trying to incorporate Modern Warfare multiplayer perks into your work and more time thinking of tactics to maximize you and your weapon's effectiveness.

Did Not Do The Research was acceptable in the pre-internet age. It is no longer. Most of the basic facts are a Google search away.

Also, to anyone who wants to write something in which firearms and their use is a prominent feature, I say; go to the range and shoot some. Most ranges have rentals, and while it is expensive you can at least get an idea of what it feels like to fire a gun. Trust me, the reality is far removed from what Hollywood teaches. Even one such trip is a goldmine of visceral information; you can learn what gunpowder smells like, what recoil feels like, just exactly what a gun sounds like, etc. etc.

Writing fiction is not so much about reality as it is about fidelity. It doesn't have to be real, but it ought to feel real.

edited 9th Jun '12 6:52:50 PM by drunkscriblerian

Writing about guns is like writing about sex - don't write about it if you haven't done it in real life.

Not an option in many countries.

No, I haven't owned a gun, as I'm the UK: I'm fairly certain Asimov never owned a robot. Yes I neglected to check a fact about the glock, because it was late and I couldn't be bothered- this is only a forum, in writing I would have checked.

"One in the spout" is a phrase I picked up from a friend in the Regiment.

Most people's problems about writing about sex, and guns, have very little to do with not using or doing.

You don't think firing a gun might give you a better appreciation for weight, recoil, and how the various loading and safety mechanisms work? I imagine that it's rather like assembling a desk rather than just looking at the instruction manual, and anyone who's bought from Ikea can tell you how different those can be.

In all honesty, going into detail on that will often cost you the ring of truth, since to an experienced shooter it's all completely under the hood, dealt with and worked around in the subconscious while you focus on sight picture.

Even that much can end up submerged honestly. There's a reason a cop can fire his weapon accurately five times and swear up and down he only fired two or three rounds. Reactions built up in training or practice can function with pretty much no input from the shooter.

The wheels of the appearance of reality don't always turn in the same direction.

edited 11th Jun '12 1:06:10 AM by Night

Isn't that exactly why first-hand experience is useful, though? To capture that sensation?

Besides, you say it yourself - that's for an experienced shooter when everything's working just right. When things go wrong, or when a clueless newbie's behind the gun, it might be useful to have that experience in the back of your mind.

Shooting a gun, sex, pregnancy, vampire slaying — all can be written believably without firsthand experience in the matter. But it's not easy. It requires studying the topic (and related topics) and sufficient imagination.

I just told you all about it and you never needed to fire a gun. I've known people who target-shoot for years and never experience that sort of thing, though.

Really it's not a hard thing to learn, much like the reverse (an unfamiliar weapon being hard to use) isn't even so much learned as deduced.

You gave me the bare outline. You didn't tell me how it feels, whether it's crystal precision or a sense of dissociation (and which sort of dissociation?), in nearly enough detail for me to adapt it to my writing style and characters (if I were hypothetically going to write about it). Saying 'you switch off' is one thing. Describing how you switch off and what it feels like is another.

To analogise, imagine the sound of a minigun. I can ask other people what it sounds like and get a dozen different answers, or I can call up Youtube and listen to their various videos on it (for the record, it's not the dakka-dakka-dakka of movies, which artificially slow it down - I hear it as a loud, sawing buzz). Personally experiencing sensations gives you a far better idea of how to write them.

Switching off is a very personal and subjective experience. You could describe it nearly any way you want and it would sound true to somebody. (Could say the same thing about sex.) I gave you a very vague description because it, too, would sound true to someone who has experienced it without going into details that might not.

You're making the act of writing this and the necessary information to do so more complex than it needs to, or necessarily should, be.

edited 11th Jun '12 1:47:22 AM by Night

Which, again, suggests that going through it yourself might help you comprehend it better.

As for why this is important, it's for the same reason any bit of intense detail is important - it can give you plot points and get your readers further into the viewpoint character's head.

It...doesn't suggest any such thing. I would, given my own reading and a small degree of thought, know all of this without having ever owned a gun; the fact I do own a gun and have experience can't really be considered to have changed it. You could easily, again, deduce that by reading a bit and personal intense experiences of other types. Or even more reading; the nature of eyewitness accounts gives you a pretty good clue about the nature of subjective experience under adrenaline and pressure.

You're stretching this idea of yours further than it can truly go. Maybe it would be useful, but a lack of actual experience is no more a detriment to writing a successful scene involving a gun than having actual experience could be.

I cannot agree with this strongly enough. Most of the benefits to a writer from having personal experience in some area of expertise will only apply if describing it in more details then are strictly necessary.

Personal experience is just one more tool in the box for a writer. It's an important one, but not the be-all or the end-all. Doing research is doing research. However, if something (like sex or guns or whatever) is going to feature prominently in your story, some personal experience is invaluable. If you don't have it, consider a story which does not feature said element quite so heavily.

I'm wondering why people are so against acquiring personal experience, TBH.

^ It tends to change their perceptions and conclusions of what the thing is that's being experienced. For instance, once you've fired a gun you know it's a tool and nothing changes that change. The mysticism of it is gone basically. Same thing with say hacking a computer network. Once you've actually broken a password or escalated privilege to the highest you can get away with the mysticism and limitless wonder of hackers is gone. (This latter reason is why I cannot take Everything Is Online seriously, especially the presentation done in Live Free Or Die Hard. I've done actual computer hacking before and it's nothing like the movies.)

I'm against this argument that you cannot use something in a story without having had first-hand experience with it.