One of the joys of writing is using your imagination to bring to life situations, events, places, and people you've never actually encountered in real life. But this imaginative work isn't always easy. Suppose your main character suddenly decides she wants to spend a few weeks in Taos, New Mexico -- but you've never been west of the Mississippi. How do you get the details right?
What if you're writing about a love affair between a prep cook and a busboy at a greasy spoon -- but you've taught high school English for twenty years? Where do you go to find out the flavor of the day-to-day life of a diner worker?
Maybe you just finished writing your 300th draft of your novel telling the story of the summer you spent working on a fishing boat in Seattle -- and you'd like to work on something that's not about you, for a change. How do you find inspiration and information to get you writing outside the "box" of your own life?
The solution to these dilemmas (and more) can be found in a new WEbook project, Need an Expert for a Plot Problem? In Need an Expert...?, WEbookers are pitching in to trade life experiences and expertise with their fellow writers. Whether you're a writer in need, or a volunteer willing to talk to someone about your life -- or both -- Need an Expert...? promises company, inspiration, and not a little bit of good, old-fashioned learning.
Here's how it works: Altruistic WEbookers visit Need an Expert...? and make a deposit in the "experience bank" by creating a submission that briefly describes either a place, a career, or a life event that they know something about. Writers come along and scan the submissions. When they encounter something that piques their interest -- or meshes with a current project in progress -- they send the author a private message to find out more. A correspondence develops, and before you know it, the writer knows everything he or she could ever hope to know about what it was like to be in Memphis on the day Elvis died. Voila! A story is born.
Need an Expert...? currently contains 75 offers for information, ranging from court reporting to surviving spinal meningitis. Visit the project today to submit your own experiences, and to get inspired by the rich lives your fellow WEbookers have led!
Know a really great project on WEbook? Want to spread the word? Send me an email or visit my profile and drop me a message to nominate it as a Featured WEbook Project!
To get started, sign up for WEbook today.
-- Melissa
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