Participation is Key

A lot of writers tend to forget that sometimes you need to actually have done something or to write about it effectively. This isn't the usual "you need only write what you know"; it's more of a "do your research". In this day and age, we can actually spend on actually looking at how people actually do things between YouTube, the History Channel, and 27 zillion different sources, we actually take advantage of those who actually do things. So if we can't do something we can find someone who has done it and take advantage of that experience.

However, the best stories are not just a matter of actually doing the research and getting out there and actually doing it. because people are going to be able to tell if you're just writing about something, if you've just done a lot of research on it, or if you've actually done it. It's going to show in all that extra detail. There's a lot of difference between the actually setting off of an explosives versus just simply telling, going through, and describing everything you read out of the instruction book. There's going to be a certain level of adrenaline there, there's going to be a certain level of, "Oh my gosh, did I do this right or am I going to totally blow myself up?" in there that you're not going to have if you just took followed the instructions of a YouTube video or even the world's best instruction book on building bombs 

Yeah, I know, this is going to put me on yet another watch list. 

But you have to realize that when it comes to doing things like dancing, or fencing, or climbing mountains, there's a certain level of experience that you need to have in order to write about these things effectively. I don't care if you've even gone up the wall at the local gym, at some point in time you actually have to climb things in order to basically experience that and make that into a much bigger experience. You need to know the stretching of muscles as they look for a handhold, the feel of gravity pulling against every move up the wall, and the stress of not knowing if the next handhold is going to give way and you'll end up falling to the ground. 

That little bit of wall climbing you as a gym is gonna actually be able to be exploded into climbing mountains because you're going to have some sort of analogy. You can then actually build on that when it comes to your writing. You need to realize that you as a writer actually need to get out from behind the keyboard and actually do this really weird thing called "actually participate in life." Trust me, the more participation you do, the better writer you're going to be. So just keep in mind that if you're not sure how to do it, then find an expert and go actually do it. Participation is key for the best possible stories, so go out and do things.