Picture Picture

I'm reading an excellent book by Ann Patchett called State of Wonder in which a doctor from Minnesota takes a trip (for which she is unprepared) to the deepest Amazon. Patchett makes the jungle real in her writing. I wonder how she researched that. I mean, did she look it up online? Read books? See a movie? Or did she actually go there?

I might be able to research Patchett and find out, but for the moment I'd like to ponder the question.

In one scene an anaconda nearly kills a boy. I don't know a thing about anacondas and it would have seemed real enough to me if the danger had come from either constriction or the snake's bite. But let's say you know about snakes. Would it bother you if the author got it wrong? Or would you just think, "It's fiction, she's allowed to make it up"?

John and I discuss questions like this when we talk about writing. When we talk about photography, we don't. We just take our pictures from our different angles, and we're fine with that.