“What what you know” is classic writer advice passed back and forth on the internet and in writing groups. But what does it actually mean to write what you know? Should all of our characters be exactly like us?
And what about fantasy novels? How can we write about things that are, by definition, not real?
Obviously “write what you know” can’t be taken completely literally.
Writing What We Know- The Obvious
The most straightforward way of writing what we know is probably a memoir or a story based on our personal experiences.
In this case we are literally writing about something we personally have seen and lived.
This also applies to How To books stemming from our expertise in various fields, etc. These books are based on the premise that we are sharing what we know with other people.
Writing What We Know- Looking Deeper
Beyond the straightforward sharing of knowledge above, sometimes writing what we know means looking deeper beneath the surface.
There are many core truths, events, and emotions that we all experience in our lives.
Things like wanting acceptance, feeling rejection, self-doubt, or starting something for the first time.
As writers we can examine ourselves, really look into our own moments of pain or happiness, and use what is at the core of those experiences in our stories. These emotions resonate with others because they are universal.
This requires effort and vulnerability on the part of the writer. Maybe that’s why writing is often referred to as painful.
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
Ernest Hemingway
When we use what we know and put our own experiences, failures, and emotions into a story, we get at core truths that add life to our writing.
Writing What We Know- The Flipside
Sometimes we’re writing about things we don’t know about personally.
Whether it’s a setting we’ve never visited (real or imaginary), a character different than ourselves, or anything we haven’t done personally- our stories will contain something we don’t know about completely.
And that’s good. We should be writing diverse stories.
Writing is a wonderful way to experience, learn about, and explore new topics, new places, and new ideas.
We shouldn’t let our lack of experience stop us, but we also need to be willing to put in the work to get it right and honest about our abilities to do so.
We must be humble, asking for help and doing our research.
This requires effort and will entail a lot of legwork that people may never recognize. But it is absolutely essential if we are to write about things we don’t know because it’s up to us to get it right.
For further reading:
Write What You Know? Don’t You Dare – Helping Writers Become Authors
So after all that, how do we decide what do we do?
We write the stories that are on our hearts and that keep coming back to our minds. We work to be vulnerable, honest, and humble.
And we put in the work to use what we know and to learn what we don’t.
