Person who is allegedly writing a book about Maine, admittedly, knows nothing about Maine

BDN File Photo

BDN File Photo

People are always asking for help on Reddit. Three days ago, a strange request for information came across R/Maine. User u/l4ng4m posted a thread called “I need help information in Maine,” it read:

Hi i am making a novel about a mysterious guy that bought a huge ranch land in maine what i need is the information about the locals like best cars to drive in maine specially in winter also the basic local food and other stuff. Because the novel i am making is about ranching, farming and fishery. also taxes in ranch or stuff and im not from main that is the bad thing what i need is a local to help me thanks in advance!

As of Dec. 5, there are 30 comments. There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s dive in.

Users commented on the poster’s poor English, saying that they shouldn’t write a book. But, u/l4ng4m said that he will be writing in his native language, and then translating.

The biggest point users made was that there aren’t very many ranches in Maine.

Maine doesn’t have huge ranches. Maine does have smaller family dairy farms…Mainers like to drive Subaru cars, and 4 wheel drive pickup trucks…A classic Maine food is baked beans, also traditional French Canadian foods like tourtiere pie in certain areas. – u/hike_me

Some commenters were puzzled about the selection of Maine.

The classic advice is “write what you know.” If you’ve never been to a place and know very little about it, your depiction is very unlikely to ring true. What led you to pick Maine as your setting? If you associate ranches with Maine, I kinda have to assume you’ve never been here… – u/daeedorian

At least some of the commenters were truthful.

Subaru is the most common car in Maine. A Coexist sticker on the bumper too. – u/failingtolurk

One shared an overly stereotypical story.

Well my granddaddy used to work for the CIA until he retired back in the late 70’s and bought a large cattle ranch in Bangor. He drove a Subaru if I recall. Ate a lot of coffee pots and tri-city pizzas. Now and then he’d take grandma to govnah’s for dinnah. It was tough making a go of it. He often had to resort to being a lobstah catchah to make ends meet. He always wore a lot of LL Bean stuff. I hope this is helpful. – u/jskelington3502

Feel free to leave our author some words of advice on the thread. You might be acknowledged in the novel!