Do you have to have been to a place to write about it convincingly?

@Crystal: There is a subreddit for Cuba, actually.

edited 27th Mar '14 7:06:18 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

Alrighty, then.

Not necessarily, but just to point out- there is a major difference between writing about somewhere completely fictional and somewhere you've just never been to, and that's the fact that many of your readers will come from the place you've never been to. The amount of times I've read or watched something with an Irish character, and it's done badly is unreal. Or when you see something with Ireland and things are just wrong. It's extremely grating and distracting, and just lets the author down. If it keeps happening, it can ruin the work completely.

If you're writing about somewhere you've never been, just make sure you do your research, I guess, especially when it comes to the small things, because I guarantee you, people will pick up on it. Different places have different quirks, like how they view certain issues, or how they speak, or what they like to do.

Go to Google Maps, and walk down virtual streets on that(but just bear in mind that it might be out of date). Go online and talk to people from the place you want to write about. Watch films made by, and books written by people from that place. If you do your research well enough, you could easily learn more about the place than someone who has actually been there(a week long holiday in a tourist camp might leave you knowing nothing about the country or its culture), and so write about it convincingly.

I don't know if that's relevant or not and I rambled a bit, but it's something that always wrecks my head when I'm watching or reading something set in a country foreign to the writer's own one. XD

edited 22nd Apr '14 6:10:33 AM by QueenPanic