You Know Nothing, Jon Snow...by Jamie Hill

The popular TV show Game of Thrones has a fan favorite character (just look at his face and you'll understand why!) named Jon Snow. Jon had a love interest for a while, and when they verbally sparred she would often tell him, "You know nothing, Jon Snow." Without posting spoilers I will say that Jon knew more than Ygritte gave him credit for, but perhaps his vision was clouded by love.

Their exchange often reminds me of the old adage, "Write what you know." I'm guilty of breaking this rule, and perhaps my vision is clouded as well. I'm going to lay out my defense and see if you agree or disagree with my methods.

When I write romantic suspense I include police, FBI Agents and US Marshals in my work. Now, I can count on one hand the number of policemen I know in real life and make that a big Zero for FBI and US Marshals. Therefore, I do a lot of research, sifting through what's out there on the internet and choosing the best tidbits to include. What guns they use, types of body armor, typical schedules, ranks, and the like can usually be found online. For me personally, that's good enough to write a realistic character.

Setting is another area where I rely on the internet. I've lived a fairly sheltered life, born and raised in the same small, Midwestern community, married to one man for almost thirty-five years, my extended family all nearby. I've traveled to about half of the fifty states but mostly to the ones closest to me, and one memorable journey into southern Canada. I don't set most of my stories in my town for a couple of reasons. Yes, it's what I know, but my friends all know it, too. If there's one sporting goods store in town, and I want to have a scene in that store, I don't want people thinking I'm writing about them or their establishment. Likewise, if the criminal works at the store, that could be very messy if someone thinks I'm writing about a real person. So for smaller towns I invent fictional places, then I have the liberty of creating whatever I want in that town.

In bigger cities it's easier to fudge. I've written about Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita, throwing in a street or neighborhood name, but never giving a real address or using an actual business. Yes, I might mention something in passing, but none of the real action will ever take place in an actual place in a real town. I'll create my own businesses so I can do what I want with them.

I like to set stories in places I've visited. After a trip to Seattle, I gained just enough information that I could reasonably set a story there. I knew what it felt like to ride an elevator to the top of the Space Needle. I saw the souvenir shops surrounding the Needle. I got lost trying to get to the Needle due to the way the streets are marked and barricaded to prevent people from turning around just anywhere.

It's fun to add a new locale to my repertoire. This fall I visited Chicago with a friend and we did all the touristy stuff. We rode to the top of the John Hancock building and the Sears Tower. Yes, it's technically called the Willis Tower now, for one more year. Then it will most likely change names again. And everyone who lives in Chicago still calls it the Sears Tower. (See what good info I picked up?) I rode in an Uber down the confusing, multi-level Wacker Drive and floated on a couple of different boats, an architectural river cruise through the town, and a lake shore cruise around the Navy Pier. And, we ran into a group of Chicago PD bike cops who were so nice and let us take their picture. I feel like I have lots of fodder to set a novel in Chicago, now. I'll continue to make up businesses, but also throw in some real place names just for fun.

That's how I get around writing what I know. Some things I do know are about people and relationships, and what causes their problems and how it makes them feel. That stuff I can confidently say I know, and try to weave the tension and conflict through my stories before everyone gets their happily-ever-after ending. Because I also know, that's what readers want. I do, too.

So what do you think? Are my reasons for breaking the rule justified, or, like my man Jon Snow, do I really just know nothing? Leave a comment with your email address and you'll be entered in Books We Love's October Blog Comment Giveaway. One winner will receive a festive holiday basket like the one pictured on the sidebar, plus the BWL title of their choice.

Find my latest novel, co-written with Books We Love's Jude Pittman, here. 

https://www.amazon.com/New-Directions-McWinter-Confidential-Book-ebook/dp/B01H2ZSN4A/

Find all my titles here:

http://bookswelove.net/authors/hill-jamie/


Thanks for visiting! 

Dragon Con = Crazy Fun

The Great Corvalo, star of his own horror short. I think my son is channeling Igor...

Okay! Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia, is a huge S/F-comic-anime-fantasy jack-of-all-trades gathering, hosting everyone from crazed tv show and gamer fan types to--well, just about anybody, even an ancient S/F geek like myself. My taste is eclectic, and this is definitely the Con for that as it has a lot of everything, from classic S/F novels to old television shows like the industry-spawning Star Trek, to Horror, to Doctor Who, to Brit, Japanese, and American fantasy. My son, a software engineer and his wife, retired civil servant, have been attending for years, and this was the year they finally persuaded me to leave my cave in Pennsylvania and come down for four days of collective madness. I had no idea of just how big this event was.

Street scene--While waiting in a panel entry line which wrapped around a city block, I was accosted by a nasty goblin,
star of a horror short also featuring Walter Koenig of the original Star Trek

In the first place, I hadn't realized that this was going to be 70,000 people all squeezed into 5 hotels and then erupting like pyroclastic flow onto the streets of downtown Atlanta, right in the heart of the business district. I attended the very first Star Trek Con in NYC many, many years ago, and let me tell you, it was nothing like this.

As you can see, I'm a Doctor Who fan with questionable taste in friends...

We emerged from the MARTA on the first day and immediately passed any number of assorted monsters, storm troopers, Anime characters, Orphan Black and Stranger Things characters waiting in line for breakfast at the Chick'FilA. By the time we arrived at  the registration line, we'd encountered any number of full dress (and full drag) attendees parading the streets. Soon, we'd all be moving from hotel to hotel in search of the next panel discussion we hoped to get into.

Parade Day was Saturday! It takes over the downtown for a few hours of total madness.

The last (utterly vain) human female, veteran of many surgeries, (Doctor Who) and her "moisturizers."

There were many dragons.

Tom Baker version Doctor Who--two of them--with a somewhat disturbing version of his sidekick, Amy Pond.

Everyone's favorite Alien stalks the streets, and, later, the hotel lobby...

We arrived at 7 a.m. on Saturday in order to grab a curbside seat for the parade, and the place was already filling up. On this day, another GA dwelling son brought his school age daughter, as we'd planned a long day's adventure with her. As a senior and a marching band member, she is BUSY, but she made time to join us, in her best Hogwart's garb--House Slytherin.

Filk with talented Nick Edelstein--his uniform that of a Next Gen Starfleet Commander--who can do a mean Jimi Hendrix riff, too!

Filk is a Dragon Con tradition--the songs we all know with substituted S/F lyrics. Word play is second nature to writers, so I found this great fun. A well known classic in the genre would be Yoda, by Weird Al Yankovich, easily found on Utube--if you need to. My grandgirl, an apple who has not fallen far from the tree, could and did sing along with this deathless classic at one of the filk sessions we enjoyed. The term "Filk" comes from a long ago typo in a scholarly article about the influence of S/F upon Folk Music. Embrace the Typo, we say--or 'we says,' as LOTR's Gollum would have it.

Devo Mutants w/old lady in fav Dr. Who t-shirt

In short, this was

Zot! Pow! overwhelming!

The world has learned to embrace Nerd-dom, and finds it can still survive. (The world has also learned that it sure can make a good ol' American buck off all these OCD crazies, as well!) Two floors of a downtown mall were dedicated to vendors so the shopping sprees available were limitless. The crowds there were just as crushing as the hotel parade-see-and-be-seen lobbys.  Costume Play (Cos Play) seemed to have the most entries, though sugar-fix theme decorated cupcakes could also be purchased.

Not usually much of a shopper, I tried on a lovely green dragon tail--only $50.00--but decided I could probably live without this, especially when I considered wearing it onto the plane...

And, for all you Game of Thrones fans, the place was alive with characters from this show. Blonde Danerys look-alikes were everywhere, but we didn't manage to get a good picture. I especially liked the ones who had colorful baby dragons perched on their shoulders, a tender maternal touch.

Game of Thrones characters were everywhere

In the end, though, for me, this was big fun with family, always a GMA's ultimate good time.

All pics courtesy of DIL, Sons, and their trusty phones.
(And I'm sufficiently old that still sounds a little weird.)

~~Juliet Waldron

http://amzn.to/1UDoLAi    Historical novels by Juliet Waldron at Amazon