Write What You Know?

A photo of Honey Island Swamp taken by the author.

“Write what you know.” 

You’ve likely heard the admonition. But writers must also write from what they imagine and from what they learn. Writing fiction is about creating something that is not yet known from those things that are.

I wrote my first Bayou Boys Adventure book, VOODOO VIRUS, completely on secondary research (maps, satellite images, Internet and Chamber of Commerce information). I had never been in a bayou, much less to the state of Louisiana. For the second book in the series, Marsh Monster, I wanted to experience as much of what I would share with my readers as possible. So…

I took a recon and fact-gathering trip to southern Louisiana. I toured the haunts of the famed Honey Island Swamp Monster and took a Haunted History tour of the French Quarter. I wandered through the streets of the Big Easy and the Garden District. And I slipped down to Cajun country, past Plantation mansions, into the sleepy town of Houma (where the characters in my book live).

I found out I’d made a couple “mistakes” in book one. Nothing big, but a couple of the details about Houma especially were pure fiction. My new book, MARSH MONSTER (due to be released June 28, 2013), and its “sequel,” because of primary research will be more accurate and detailed. The dialogue, sights, sounds and smells will better come to life and faux pas should be non-existent.

Still, I did make this up.