Wait you think what?

The thing that has been getting to me the most lately is writers who don't do the research.  If you live from the south, and you want to write about winter in the North East, come to me, I grew up here.  I lived in MA for half my life, the other half has been in RI.  So I know the area.  The point is, please find some one who lives there and ask them.  Don't just guess.  The person I'm writing about had a good story going but didn't do the research, it ruined it dramatically for me.  Mass loves their snow plows!

My responses were, wait what? The entire time, I could't focus on the plot, or on the characters because I was too baffled by ice storm= pretty white fluffy snow the next day=a snow mobile in Salem MA in December. (Wait, what?) It was a great story, if I could get past the holes.  However, I barely got through the three chapters that were sent to me.  I feel bad about it, cause I was supposed to help critique it as part of the workshop I'm in, but if I can't say anything nice I have to walk away, I would have dragged this person through the dredges.  We have to be tactful in the workshop, no brutal honesty, because the author will think your just getting personal and wont listen to the advise.

The moral of the story is research research research! So hope you enjoyed my post, I'm off to do some research.  Has anyone gone spelunking before?

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