Don’t Write What You Know

Before I read a lot of scripts and stories from new writers, I never realized that English teachers have done a great disservice to young people learning to write. These instructors say, “Write what you know.” The thought being that since you know the subject, then the end result will benefit from the familiarity.

Poppycock.

From what I’ve read, and from discussions I’ve had with other writers, the only people who should write what they know are professionals with a score of credits under their belt. Oh sure, there have been exceptions—there are almost always exceptions—but the rule still holds. Leave writing what you know until you have enough experience to do it right.

Discipline

The why of it is very simple: discipline. Before you can do justice with your store of knowledge, you need to learn how to use the tools that will allow you to tell your tale effectively. There are other reasons, but that is the most important.

What do I mean by “what you know”? It can be either life or educational experience. Often, writers want to write about their favorite interest because they REALLY know it. I’m sorry to admit that I, too, fell into this trap. The thing is, you get so enamored by the subject that the story itself suffers. The result frequently shows that you are more willing than you should be to sacrifice the story for the sake of being accurate—which, in fiction, is really bass-ackwards. When push comes to shove, story needs have to always win. The professional has learned this and is willing to let go. Even more, the professional is eager to let it go in anticipation of a better story.

Genre

Genre is an interesting subset of this. I think that you should, by all means, write in the genre that you feel most comfortable in. However, it’s important that even though a particular genre is in your comfort zone, be mindful that it might not be the best venue to display your talent. It’s about as likely as unlikely that your familiarity with a type of writing will have so insinuated itself upon your psyche that it might limit you. After all, if you’ve been told all your life that heavier-than-air contraptions can’t be made to sustain controlled flight, and you accept that, then you aren’t likely to invent an airplane. So, too, can limiting yourself to only your favorite genre straight-jacket you into a narrow (i.e. formulaic) literary paradigm.

That said, trying out an unfamiliar genre can also mean that you will be going over the same old tired plots that, while original to you, are shopworn cliches to the aficionados. On the plus side, following this detour, you will have learned new skills to bring back to your familiar genre, with the result that your stories will gain even more richness as you make them your own.

Trying It Out

Since you obviously want to avoid sub-par writing, I’d suggest this as a comfort zone: write in a genre you like, but make some of the character interactions have a touch of reality. For example, if you have sisters in real life, and you have a couple of female characters in your story who are emotionally bound together somehow (sisters, friends, cell-mates, sire-and-sired vampires, etc), then take one or two incidents/interactions that actually happened between you and your siblings and use that as a basis for a couple of minor scenes in your characters’ relationship. If it doesn’t quite work in print, then it’s no biggie. You haven’t devoted the bulk of the story to “what you know”, just a few scenes. You’ll learn how and what to do better the next time you try.

(Here’s a quick tip: make the actions that you’re using in the story “bigger” than they were in real life. Exaggerate a little, while also being concise, and you will, more likely than not, be closer to the result you are aiming for.)

Generally speaking, it’s best to keep “what you know” as a secret stash of ingredients to draw from to add spice to, and improve the flavor of, your stories. If you use it up all at once, then what do you have left to add that will be original later on?

What about those times when you want to do more than just add “color” to a few scenes? There is no law on this. You are prefectly free to write about the entire contents in your brain, if you like—the trick is to make it so others will want to read it. Remember, even though Little Women was clearly Alcott writing about “what she knew”, it also wasn’t her first work. She’d managed to get many of the kinks out of her writing before penning that famed work—which, amazingly, she didn’t really care for.

(Original text posted by me at CJ’s Creative Studio 5-29-2008)