Write what you know? How about write what you can learn using Google Maps?
From a piece in the New York Times...
If you want to write about North Korea, it’s not hard to find pictures
of the monuments and colossal boulevards of Pyongyang, the capital city,
because these are the images sanctioned and disseminated by the
government, and all that any visitor allowed into North Korea is allowed
to see of it. But if you are interested in the rest of the country — at
least if you are a writer who wants to put characters on the ground
there — the obvious problem becomes: How to render what these characters
see? How to describe the topography of the landscape? In essence, how
to breach the misanthropy of a country just for getting its street names
right?
Enter Google Earth. Enter Google Maps.
I happened on Google Earth a few years ago while reading up on
Scientology and, O.K., about John Travolta and his demesne, which can
apparently accommodate two private planes. But don’t believe me, see for
yourself: here are the coordinates on Google Earth. . . . Wait — what? I
downloaded the program and was, in an instant, floored by this
technology. Forget Travolta’s place. I could visit the Grand Canyon,
which, unbelievably, I once drove right by without stopping. I could
check out aerial photos of cattle worldwide and see if they really do
orient themselves along a north-south axis while they graze. I could
return to my childhood home in Cleveland. And perhaps most
astonishingly, I could take a look at North Korea — at a map of the
country overlaid with satellite imagery and captions. What an incredible
resource for a writer. If you can’t get to a place yourself, spy on it.
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