Writing Basics: Write What You Know

Ever read a bestselling novel in which the hero was a construction worker?

Me neither.

It's a story-telling basic that writers – even published authors – tend to forget. It's the reason Stephen King's characters tend to be novelists. It's the reason we haven't seen Khaled Hosseini stray too far from the Middle East. Or Jeffrey Eugenides from Detroit. And it's the reason bestselling authors rarely deviate from their chosen genre.

Write what you know.

It's almost silly how often I see a proposal come through from a published author who suddenly wants to take a stab at writing for teens. Or African Americans. Or the thriller/adventure crowd. And yet that author has done nothing to understand the basics (let alone the complexities) that surround their new target market.

And if we're seeing this from published authors, imagine the type of stuff we see from unpublished ones.

The goal of a novel, however off-the-wall or hokey the plot may be, is to get the reader's buy-in. With it, the reader is able to fully immerse themselves in the story and, to some extent, believe in what's happening. Without it, the reader spends his time picking it apart, analyzing the details and scoffing at its overall ridiculousness.

This is because when authors write outside of their expertise, the sense of reality that should surround their story starts to deteriorate. Readers begin to notice inconsistencies and begin to question whether the author has ever even seen the Eiffel Tower or heard an M-16 fire or ridden on Chicago's 'L'.

A story can only be as good as the reality behind it, you see, and readers tend to be extremely educated in their genre-of-choice.

So, if you're a homemaker, living in a suburb of Cleveland with field experience in Nursing and a few Horse Jumping trophies in your closet, it's probably not a good idea to come to us with your idea for a nuclear warfare novel that takes an ex-Marine and a young Mediterranean fisherman and turns them into Israeli diplomats (not to mention best friends, of course).

Unless you've done a lot of research.

- Amanda

Comments

[patriciazell]

Amanda, I think your point carries over to nonfiction, too. Research is great, but experience is priceless. I can understand why publishers want platforms for nonfiction writers--platforms prove experience. Thanks for your post!

[Timothy Fish]

No, but A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court comes awfully close with a factory worker/blacksmith/horse-doctor. Twain was closer to those things than most of us are today, but though your point is well taken, the fact is that good writers must find a way to write about characters who do things the writer hasn't experienced personally. Even if the protagonist is a carbon copy of the author, the villain is likely to be involved in things the authors hasn't experienced and yet the villain is as important, if not more important, than the protagonist.

[Theresa Lode]

Amanda- What great thoughts! I just love reading this blog and now there is yet another reason to look forward to my visits.

Now. Does this mean you're not interesting in seeing my proposal on the Lithuanian welder who uncovers a conspiracy to overthrow the government? It's a *riveting* tale. (Har, har.)

On the flip side...it sometimes scares me what I *do* know. ;) (My home resembles "The Far Side". Very scary.)

[Buffy Andrews]

Great to see you blogging, Amanda. Keep up the terrific work. Blessings, Buffy

[Megan]

Hmmm. I've always been of the opinion that if you want to write about something, you should research it and do so. Definitely, definitely do the research and do it well. However, do not squelch the passion of that sudden idea simply because you don't know much about the topic. The best writing comes from the marriage of passion and research.

[Robyn Roste]

"A story can only be as good as the reality behind it...." Love it. Thank you for your insight!

[Nikole Hahn]

I love that last comment. Very funny. For a while, I played with other genre's, but found my niche is in speculative/Christian fantasy/secular fantasy and romance. Though I dominately follow the former. It was new for me to create worlds. I read up on it. I researched. I read and watched fantasy.

[David Todd]

Ah, I'm a civil engineer heavily involved in construction, who thinks he's also a novelist. Should I start writing/pitching construction site novels? Or, want to read my construction poetry?

"Ode to a Trackhoe"
"Juan, the Concrete Man"
"The Pipe Layer's Dream"
"Of Bollards and Berms"

The question is if anyone in the world would be interested in novels in my specific areas of knowledge/experience.

[Sharon A Lavy]

Great instructional post Amanda.Thanks. We need to see your picture too!

[Bethany]

I think "write what you know" is simultaneously so true and - when oversimplified - so false. Which I think is what Timothy is getting at.

[Olivia Magdelene]

Stephen King is not the best example: Duma Key is about a construction worker who is injured on the job. Further, this author managed to also do serious character sketches of people from various ethnicity that are respected (The Shawshank Redemption or The Green Mile, for example).

By the logic in this article, we would have been deprived also of Memoirs of a Geisha. Authur Golden is neither Asian nor female. Yet to read it, you would never know.

Years ago, a writer worth their salt would actually travel to a new place and do research about it before writing it. Nora Roberts made industry news when she wrote Montana Sky without actually going there. She's written over 150 books. Very few of the characters work as writers, comparatively speaking.

Writers, like all people, need a challenge to keep their ideas fresh. Dean Koontz, for example, took a step into children's books years ago. Tom Clancy writes the NetForce series for young adult with great success. There are countless other examples.

I recently came across The Conjure Man by Peter Damian Bellis. It was subsequently rejected for years not because it wasn't good, but because he's a white man writing about African-American characters.

This happened to me as well. Over a decade ago, I wrote a vampire tale set in the 1500s in Sussex, England. I am African-American. It was felt that the book could not be marketed because of my ethnicity. I was forced to scrap it.

So this is why I find this article limiting. Sometimes we do not plan the ideas that we are given by The Muse. It just comes to us. One of the most refreshing things I liked about publishing was that you were judged on the quality of the writing itself, not your pedigree, where you are from, or who you are behind the name on the work.

If a suburban mom wants to write about an Indonesian man on a quest in 1461, who are we to say it can't work based on the idea rather than the execution? Just my thoughts.

[Kit]

HA! Amanda, your post made me laugh! Thanks :-)

[Vicki Hinze]

Amamda, you made a valuable point. I once read a book where an individual was sitting on the first floor, looking down on the Mississippi River--in New Orleans. The river, as we all know from Katrina, is above, and unless you can see through the levee, this is physically impossible. Same book, the same individual walked from Lake Pontchartrain to the Quarter--in HIGH HEELS. Ain't happening. It's a long, long way--miles. So credibility was shot.

The real gem that gleams is in your last line--about researching well.

In totality, what you've said is: WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW or KNOW WHAT YOU WRITE.

And on that, I think you hit the target, dead center.

[Amanda Luedeke]

I think everyone here is pretty much on the same page.

By no means should creativity be limited by experience or forte. That would be ridiculous! But when those big ideas come, it's so important to do the proper legwork to ensure accuracy. This is where research comes in--the idea of knowing what you write.

As Vicki pointed out (and as my husband points out every time we watch a movie in which a gun is fired more times than it has bullets), holes make a big difference to the reader, because they make the reader come back to reality.

Oftentimes as writers, I think we assume that we can let our imaginations fill in those holes. To some extent, we can. Fiction is a sort of reality limbo. But as perfecters of the craft, we must also perfect our stories.

And in some cases that means understanding the view of the Mississippi from New Orleans. In other cases, it just means getting a handle on the genre so that you avoid some newbie mistakes. It's not always years of laborious research (we'll leave that to Bernard Cornwell).

[Lauren Sylvan]

I write the sixteenth century. Never been there, myself.
But then, neither have any of my readers.

[terri tiffany]

Um--my WIP has a construction worker as the hero but since I owned a construction company for 20 years and my husband was one--why not write about it?? LOL

[Eva Marie Everson]

"A bit" you say? My editor says I use "a bit" too much in my writing and so, when the ms. is done, I have to go back and do the ole global search so as to get rid of all my "a bits." :)

Now on to my real comment. I attended my writers group a few months back. When it came time for announcements of success, etc., one gal stood and said, "I just had an article published ... so I guess I'm a real writer now!" Everyone clapped.

I stood and said, "Betty [I think that was her name], you've always been a real writer because you write. NOW you are a published author."

Eva Marie Everson
Real Writer and
Published Author

[David Kubicek]

I agree with Donald Windham when he said: “I disagree with the advice ‘Write about what you know.’ Write about what you need to know, in an effort to understand.”

It's easier than ever to do research today, and we would get tired of individual writers if they only wrote about what they knew from personal experience.

[B Jas]

Great post Amanda! Writing what I know is all I know and it seems to spew from my inspired imaginings to the page (aka screen). Hope you like it too because I just placed a Query in your in-box.
All the best,
B. Jas (www.restlesswriters.ca)

[Dennis Brooke]

Amanda,
Great advice. I think it's key that we expand what we know. I recently traveled to the Eastern Med and during that trip thought about how my experience helped me to expand my knowledge of both characters and history.
I used your posting as a jumping off point for a blog posting on the Northwest Christian Writers Association blog. Check out "Writing More Than You Know" at http://nwchristianwriters.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/writing-more-than-you-know/