How important is human experience to a writer? Is it more important

>>8722906
Both. Experience gives you content to write, the study of literature gives you ways to write.

The experience of a shut-in is experience nonetheless.

>>8722906
human experience is not at all important to the writer. Literature has nothing to do with writing. Good writers travel and recount their travels so that people can live through them.

>>8722970
But if your first sentence is true then the writer shouldn't need to actually do the travelling to achieve that.

>>8722975
It depends on your target audience. If you're writing literary fiction then you need to be able to prove that you are wealthy enough to travel. If you're writing genre fiction then you can write about robots fighting elves and it doesn't matter what your actual lived experience is.

It really depends what you're writing about. Look at David Foster Wallace, for example. He lived a very sheltered life until he was around 27, at which point he (quote) "realized poverty existed" while living in Boston. Despite this he was able to write about trailer park life in The Pale King in a way that is believable, etc.

But most writers tend to write about things they know.

Houellebecq's protagonists are depressed ugly computer programmers, like their author.

Richard Yates's protagonists are angsty WASPs, like their author.

My protagonist is a mysterious, extremely sensitive, intensely self-aware, dark and brooding wunderkind, like their author.

Just be true to who you are and write what comes relatively natural to you. For example, it took me years to realize that supposed "high-brow" fiction just wasn't for me, and that it actually isn't entertaining to read. Now I'm writing erotica which has enough LARPing in it to allow it to pass as fantasy akin to Game Of Thrones. I just found a publisher and I couldn't be happier. Am I the next Camus? Probably not. But will I make a lot of money writing what I love? Probably not.

>>8723224
Post an excerpt from your book.

>>8723194
are you really basing your whole idea of literature off travel? this has to be b8

>>8722906
nothing is new under the sun dude