Myth-Understood: Writing What You Know

As a new writer you may find yourself struggling.  You know you can write, and you know what you like to read.  But what you read and what you write don’t always match up, now, do they?

In classes, on Blogs, at various Writer’s Websites, you’ll hear or read the mind-numbing phrase: “Write what you know”.  The phrase is tossed out like a magic spell that will make your writing easy, fun, and salable. 

If all of your experience of Dragons, Wizards, Robots, Rockets and Dimensional Shifts come from other books (as is likely), how do you “write what you know” without stealing?  How did the original authors do it?

So, it seems that not everything we write can possibly be a function of personal experience–on the broad scale, for example.

This is where it gets interesting.  Unless you are an alien, you don’t really have experience of another world.  Chances are you’ve never seen a live dragon or cast an effective spell, either.  What you do have, however, is a lifetime’s experience with people and situations.

Perhaps your setting is other worldly, perhaps your villain is impossible on this planet, but the way your characters deal with a giant robot or horde of deranged pixies can be perfectly normal in function.  You understand how people react, what they might say or do under even extreme circumstances.

Bottom line, using your own vast experience, you can always write what you know, even if you are writing about a place you just made up.

Tagged as: Misunderstanding, Myth, Write what you know, Writing