The adage write what you know cannot be underestimated. If a writer wants to be taken seriously, they really need to know what they are writing about. Here's why:
Before the existence of the Internet, when people had to gain knowledge by going through books in the library or undertaking costly trips abroad to see locations for themselves (there were no low-fare airlines then) it meant writers could fabricate a little, knowing it would be difficult for readers to check facts, especially obscure ones. But now, within seconds, anything a writer publishes immediately falls under the glaring light of a knowledge database spanning the entire globe. And there are critics who are not afraid to speak up. In fact, they should speak up, if something is blatantly untrue, it should be called out for what it is. Shoddy and fraudulent.
So, if a writer starts making things up where facts exist, it shows and makes the author look bad. Really, really bad since we have a wealth of information freely available online. The trick is to get the facts right before getting into the serious work of writing. Admittedly, for some genres this will be easier than others. For example, early in my writing days, an author in London kindly met me for lunch and as I picked their brain for tips and tricks, they gave me the following advice which has never, ever left me:
"Let's say you want to write a scene where your characters are having dinner at The Savoy (London), you better make sure to go and have dinner there yourself. You need to know what it is like, otherwise you are going to have readers who have dined there laughing at your mockery of a scene that is founded in confabulation." As I dutifully took notes, he took a sip of wine and continued, "Ask yourself when you are in there: what does the cutlery look like, pay attention to the details, is there a defining curve on the handle of the knife, or in the cut of the wine glass? What do the chandeliers look like? How is the light - golden, dim, reflected in a dozen mirrors? Memorize everything, take it in with all your senses. Is the chair hard or soft? Is the napkin stiff and starchy, or silky and slippery, apt to fall from your lap? Only when you have done this, when you have fully experienced what it feels like to dine at The Savoy, only then are you ready to write your scene. It's not just about the food or the service, it's not a restaurant review you are writing, but a living, breathing moment in time. Make it real. And to do that you have no choice but to get yourself to The Savoy and experience it just as your characters would have."
For most fiction books based in our present day world, this type of research is relatively easy, you simply take yourself to the location and just drink in the atmosphere, the smells, the sounds, the movement, the colors, the details. Then you have what you need to write a convincing scene for your characters. However, things become a little more difficult when you want to write something historical or in another genre for which one cannot possibly gain any real direct comparison in our world, such as hard science fiction. But even in sci-fi, one can still write a convincing scene by doing real research, or in the case of some very successful authors, having a relevant education grounded in the science they are exploring.
One of my favorite authors is David Brin, a sci-fi futurist author who has won multiple awards including the coveted Hugo Award.
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