Writing What You Know

How often do we hear this? To follow it literally, though, may really restrict some options. Writing what one knows doesn't necessarily mean to keep a narrow focus, but rather to apply experiences and knowledge when creating worlds. And those experiences and that knowledge can open up a lot more doors than might be expected.

"Write what you know." So, what do you know? Probably more than you think you do.

For example, actors train to be able to create and recreate emotions on demand. Someone playing the villain needs to know how to feel murderous, hateful, deceitful, and many other emotions that most of us don't experience on a daily basis. But we have experienced them at some time or other. "Murder?" you say. "I've never murdered anyone. How could I know that feeling?"

Have you ever had a mosquito bite you? Or a gnat, red ant, or other predatory insect? What did you feel? Rage? Hate? The desire to kill?

How about planning a surprise party. Were you deceitful? Did you tell lies straight to someone's face? Were you a good liar?

Most emotions that will be played on the stage are among the life experiences of most writers. The same can be said for experiences and knowledge of settings and times. No writers alive today actually lived in the Renaissance. But because of recorded history and the ability to research, especially with the capabilities of the internet, we can quickly find the data to tell us how people lived then. Or hundreds of other times and places.

Michael Crichton is the author of many terrific novels and screenplays. Some take place in the present, some in the past, and some in the future. It's not likely that he ever saw a dinosaur live, but through research and imagination, he created the worlds such creatures inhabit, and created them with authority and credibility. Research. In his case, it wasn't just what he already knew, but a matter of expanding on that knowledge, and then defining those worlds to his readers.

Many classic authors of the 1800s and 1900s - such as Jules Verne, Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and L. Ron Hubbard - wrote vivid and memorable works mostly from their imaginations. An imaginative world can also be "something that you know," if it is worked out, carefully considered, and skillfully presented to the readers.

Other writers, such as Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway, definitely wrote of their experiences. Their news reporter backgrounds led them down a different path.

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