WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW.

[agilebrit]

Yeah, I just saw this terrible "advice" on Yahoo Answers again. And kind of snapped. And ranted. I shall reproduce it here for posterity (because it's entirely possible it will be reported for "abuse"--which I will fight):

Write what you know, yes. And then research the rest. If all we ever wrote about was what we KNEW, I wouldn't have stuck an

Comments

[lady_moriel]

I think the biggest problem with the "write what you know" chestnut is that it is useful, but only to a point, and the point to which it's useful and the sense in which it's actually useful seem to be wildly misunderstood. Because yeah: if everybody stuck strictly to writing what they knew, very few people would write anything very interesting. So people who are responding with this on Yahoo Answers to research questions, as it sounds like they were in this case, are being...almost completely unhelpful.

But like I said: this idea can be useful if it's understood properly. I submit that information a writer learns or researches during the process--assuming it's researched thoroughly enough--could be considered to become what the writer knows, and therefore "write what you know" is a caution against, you know, making crap up and assuming your readers can't tell you didn't do your homework. That may be taking the axiom a little far, but it's a good reminder for some people, because there seem to be a lot of authors who just...don't do their homework.

I've also seen "write what you know" explained as, basically, "write from your own lived experience, emotions, and understanding, so that no matter how far-fetched/speculative/alien/whatever your actual plots get, your characters will emotionally resonate with readers because those emotions etc. come from the reality you know." Which, again, would obviously be giving too much credit to the people you're talking about, if one assumed that's what they meant...but it does mean that "write what you know" can be a very helpful reminder.

[agilebrit]

The response that triggered the rant was this:

A general rule of writing: If you don't know about it, don't write about it. Common sense, really.

I can understand why you would want it to be a real place, so the story seems more "real." But, honestly, just make a place up, based upon the places you know in reality. It can be just as convincing.

And it's not the first time I've seen something like that on YA, where apparently, if you don't know about it firsthand and you have to ask questions about it, then you should just give up and write something else. Or something. "Write what you know" is all fine and good, but taking it way too far (as this useless "answerer" did) is what I'm objecting to here.

[solri]

I've seen the same advice in an article by William Burroughs, so unless he was being totally hypocritical (or had a life in a parallel universe even weirder than the one we know about), we can assume that "know" is to be interpreted broadly.

[agilebrit]

And it's fine advice as far as it goes. I just see it taken way too far way too often. Telling someone to "make something up out of whole cloth" rather than using an actual city because they had the temerity to ask a question about it is ridiculous--and that's what I'm ranting about here. :)

[solri]

It's like those bits of advice on style, like "Cut out unnecessary words." I mean, who would cut out a necessary word, or deliberately insert an unnecessary one? (Except, of course, for students trying to stay inside the word limits.)