“Write what you know” is one of the most common and misleading pieces of advice given to writers. It is often taken to mean that your writing should stick close to your own life and first-hand experiences. It sounds like good common sense – a way to avoid making and idiot of yourself and bring realism to your work. But, in the words of Admiral Akbar, it’s a trap.
Writing what you know is intended to make your writing believable. You were a police officer, so your story about a police officer will ring true. Straying too far from what you know threatens inauthenticity, and readers disengaging because what you are writing isn’t true.
Unfortunately, this interpretation of “write what you know” misses an essential fact about all good writing. Good writing is about discovery and imagination. If you only write what you know, your stories will be flat, sad, and uninteresting – because you have discovered nothing and underused your imagination. So, what do we do if we can’t just write what we know?
Emotional Truth > Factual Truth
First, all stories are about emotional truth. If you can feel what your character’s feel, and express that emotion on the page, then the story you are writing is true. This is the most important thing you must know when you are writing: how do you characters feel? What do you do when you feel that way? What will your characters do because of how they feel?
Now, you can justifiably argue that you are writing about an emotional truth that you know. But the emotional truths experienced by the characters should change and grow – in fact, if you’re going to have any sort of happy ending then they need to change. And even if you’re writing tragedy then you will need to explore what emotional forces lead us to disaster. Exploration implies finding something you didn’t know.
Stasis is Fatal
Second, “write what you know” implies stasis. If you know everything you are going to write when you start writing, then you are making no discoveries, taking no journeys – and it is likely that will be true for your characters as well. Development and change are essential parts of a good story, and if you are afraid to stray into the woods (to borrow the phrase) then you will finish with no story.
This, by the by, also applies to research and non-fiction. A good piece of advice to all researchers is to start writing from the beginning of the project. Most of your early writing will be thrown out as you discover whatever it is you have set out to discover (or don’t and have to struggle with the idiotic bias against publishing research that does not produce “positive” results). If you aren’t producing original research – research that was not previously known – then you don’t deserve to pass peer review. If you aren’t writing original stories, then why should the reader be interested?
You Still Need to Research!
An important aside. Writing based on what you feel and discover does not obviate the need for research. Research is an essential part of the process. Read, read, read. Find other good books in your area and steal liberally[i]. Talk to people. Extend your social circle (yeah, that thing writers love the most). Pay attention to what is going on around you.
But how important is it to be factually correct? Well, it depends. In research, it is always important. In fiction, well, police procedurals are enormously popular and well-loved, but most bear little resemblance to actual police procedure. Sure, there are some fantastic police procedurals written by people who have worked and/or researched police work. But the moment you let facts get in the way of your story’s emotional truth then you
Be Extra Careful with Sensitive Issues: Assuming you Know is Dangerous.
One place where you must be careful is where you are writing about politically or personally sensitive issues. If you’re going to write about the life of a Native American in modern America or a Trans Woman in east London, you’d better make sure you read up and better yet talk to people who have the experience. Groups that have a long history of being marginalised or misrepresented are going to be rightfully pissed if you write another white saviour story – and no matter how emotionally truthful your story, you’ll get shot down faster than an American fighter pilot[ii]. Sensitivity readers are useful here: find someone who is a member of the community you want to write about, bribe them as best you can to read your manuscript, and LISTEN TO WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY.
This isn’t, by the by, just a lefty thing. I’ve been doing some early work writing about Men’s Rights Activism, which has involved interacting with people who consider themselves everything from “incels” to “playas.” The same rules apply. Shut up and listen to what they have to say. Even if you don’t like it. ESPECIALLY if you don’t like it.
You’ll note, however, that I’m not saying you can’t write about Native Americans or trans women unless you belong to those communities. Emotional truth is what counts. The process of discovery will help you get closer to that emotional truth. If you put the time and effort in to learn and engage with a community or a concept that is outside your comfort zone, that process will be reflected in the writing and make it exciting. Which leads to the third and final point.
Writing is Creative. Knowing is not.
Third, writing is a creative act. Dragons, starships, cults, werewolves, little girls narrating their own deaths and a future America where handmaids are assigned to leaders to bear children: these aren’t things that you know. They are things that you create as an extension of an emotional truth, as an analogy for things you have experienced or seen in the world around you.
Write what you can imagine. If you are writing a situation so strange to you that you can’t imagine it, then write what you can figure out. You can figure out most human experience. If you only write what you know you aren’t creating anything. You are replicating. You aren’t a writer, you’re an archivist (archivists are cool, I love archivists, but it’s not the same thing as being a writer).
Don’t write what you know. Write what you can imagine. Write what you feel. Write what you can discover. And when you discover it, write what is true – write it until it hurts – write not what you know but what you come to know by writing.
[i] No, I’m not advocate plagiarism (and good referencing only improves non-fiction, as well as winning friends in your academic circle.) Plagiarism has a specific meaning, and you should learn it. I am merely leaning into the adage that while good writers borrow, great writers steal.
[ii] Yep, letting a little bit of inter-services rivalry slip in there. If this offends you, then you should hear the things the Royal Navy call the Royal Air Force. Or the things we called ourselves, come to think of it. The most common moniker for my job in the Navy was “fishead.”
