Write what you know?

[sr71plt]

I was at a writer's event last evening where the writing course "axiom" "write what you know" was challenged. Do you think that's more of a way to get started writing than to continue doing so? Is it a limiting box on what you write? Is that a box you remain in? Is there a point at which your writing changes to exploring new territory in your writing so that you are now researching/writing what you want to know that you don't or to explore the currently unknown; expand your horizons?

For me, I'm always looking for fresh themes/plotlines, locales, historical events as a setting, character types, sexual positions, new turn ons, etc. This exploration and new discovery is, basically, what keeps me writing.

I do see so many stories here that stay within "my little world" bounds. And, frankly, they don't interest me as much as those tooling around "out there" in multiple dimensions.

 

[oggbashan]

'Write what you know' is good advice for new authors. It is a way to start writing but once you have some reasonable technique you should be able to expand beyond that.

'Write what you have thoroughly researched' comes afterwards, unless you are writing science fiction or fantasy. For those? Be internally consistent.

Conan Doyle and Georgette Heyer are good examples of those who researched their subjects in exhaustive depth.

Conan Doyle's historical novels are reasonably accurate portrayals of the times in which they are set but the characters speak modernish English.

Georgette Heyer's research was meticulous. Her book on Waterloo 'An Infamous Army' has been used as in introductory text book on the Battle of Waterloo. Her Regency novels' characters use expressions that were current at the time, wear appropriate clothing, and visit places described as they were then. In later life she tried to suppress her earlier novels because they hadn't meet her later standards of research and irritated her.

Sir Walter Scott was slapdash, particularly with his novels set in Scottish History. His was a romantic ideal of what he thought Scotland SHOULD have been like, not the real historical Scotland.

All three authors sold...

 

[SamScribble]

As Ogg says, ‘write what you know’ is good advice for writers just starting out. But once a writer has mastered a few of the more important aspects of the craft, I think a more useful rule is ‘write what interests you’. If the story, characters, situations, don’t interest the writer, it is unlikely that they will interest the reader.

 

[SevenSquared]

Agree with the responses above. I think the first time I heard the phrase used it was in the context of the larger phrase "if you're stuck, write what you know" and was passed on by my English teacher about 20 years ago. I don't think it is just applicable to beginner writers though. A lot of very famous authors base all their fiction stories around a particular theme, because it is a world that they know very well and they can really bring it to life. Dick Francis, for example, was a former jockey who went on to write dozens of best-sellers all based around horse racing.

Personally I like to force myself to write about subjects outside my comfort zone, but if I am going to add flavour to my stories then often I will pick a subject I know a bit about. For example, I know a lot about football, so if my characters are watching sport on TV, it's going to be football a disproportionate amount of the time. Not because I want all my characters to like football necessarily, but if I had them watching baseball (for example) I wouldn't really know what I was talking about so I would have to do a bit of research to make sure I didn't say something stupid. That's fine occasionally, but I don't want to have to do it every other paragraph.

 

[harry8copeland]

"write what you know" was challenged.

I once read it explained as "Don't write what you DON'T know." I'll probably remember the book in an hour or two.

The idea is, if you want to write about something, make sure you know it. Maybe that's from experience, maybe imagination, maybe research. Nothing will kill your reader's interest quicker than realizing you have no clue what you're talking about.

 

[TinyBeth]

Conan Doyle and Georgette Heyer are good examples of those who researched their subjects in exhaustive depth.

Georgette Heyer's research was meticulous. Her book on Waterloo 'An Infamous Army' has been used as in introductory text book on the Battle of Waterloo. Her Regency novels' characters use expressions that were current at the time, wear appropriate clothing, and visit places described as they were then. In later life she tried to suppress her earlier novels because they hadn't meet her later standards of research and irritated her.

I had forgotten about Georgette Heyer. I always loved her, but I preferred Jane Aiken Hodge by just a little bit in the same vein. Same things apply- her books were meticulously researched and detailed. The Adventurers in particular always blew me away how much she had researched the path of the Allied armies at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.


As for the original question. I started out writing from personal experience and have fairly quickly branched out. I attempt to mostly stay within the realms of realism, but I think I will even throw that out the window soon and work on a piece for the Fantasy/Sci-Fi category.

 

[sr71plt]

I once read it explained as "Don't write what you DON'T know." I'll probably remember the book in an hour or two.

The idea is, if you want to write about something, make sure you know it. Maybe that's from experience, maybe imagination, maybe research. Nothing will kill your reader's interest quicker than realizing you have no clue what you're talking about.

So that leaves all of the science fiction and fantasy writers out?

Only serial killers can explore the theme of serial killing?

But once you included the "maybe imagination" phrase, your whole post went bust, I think.

 

[oggbashan]

So that leaves all of the science fiction and fantasy writers out?

...

You should KNOW the world you have constructed. Otherwise the reader is unlikely to suspend disbelief.

I used to like E E Doc Smith but I became bored with his Lensman series because he kept inventing bigger and better weapons 'I've got a gun', 'I've got a bigger gun', 'I've got artillery' etc. The earlier novels were believable. The later ones stretched credibility too far.

 

[sr71plt]

You should KNOW the world you have constructed. Otherwise the reader is unlikely to suspend disbelief.

I used to like E E Doc Smith but I became bored with his Lensman series because he kept inventing bigger and better weapons 'I've got a gun', 'I've got a bigger gun', 'I've got artillery' etc. The earlier novels were believable. The later ones stretched credibility too far.

I think it's more that you've created it than that you "know" it. I think "know" is for something preexiting you.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

If I only wrote what I knew, the readers could use me as a sleeping pill. Writing what I imagine is much more fun, though making sure my depraved characters are working in a plausible universe does take at least a minimum of effort. I've goofed up once or twice and have been called out for it.

 

[PennLady]

Perhaps you need to base your stories on what you know? Not necessarily on places or fields of study, although that plays in as well, but what you know about people, both specifically and generally.

You have to stretch as well, I think. Whether that's making up worlds or experimenting with writing a type of person you may know of rather than know personally, as VM says, if you write the same thing you know over and over again, it's boring for both the reader and the writer.

 

[oggbashan]

I think it's more that you've created it than that you "know" it. I think "know" is for something preexiting you.

Perhaps I should have expanded my answer.

If you are creating a fantasy, you should know the fantasy world that you have created so that you don't make basic mistakes about your own construct.

If you are creating a Dungeons and Dragons world, what are the parameters? Are explosives not possible? Are there changes to basic physics?

In Science Fiction, what is different from today's world? Is Faster-Than-Light travel possible? If it is set on another planet, what is different about that planet from Earth? What is the same?

If you aren't consistent in the facts about your constructed world then it is a poor construct.

 

[TxRad]

Since there are only so many mousetraps out there, sometimes you need to redesign the mouse.

 

[sr71plt]

Perhaps you need to base your stories on what you know? Not necessarily on places or fields of study, although that plays in as well, but what you know about people, both specifically and generally.

Before you finish writing the story? Or can you write to explore, to expand what you knew before you started writing the story?

 

[sr71plt]

If I only wrote what I knew, the readers could use me as a sleeping pill.

I think that's exactly what can and does happen with a lot of story writers. I've looked at no few stories where I thought, "My god, you need to get out more often. This was what you wanted in life--or from sex?"

That doesn't mean that you can't make the mundane interesting. That's Anne Tyler's bread and butter, for instance--but a story that doesn't get beyond a dreary, little-box life, where the best you can do is a fifteen-minute vanilla sex scene with the mechanic down the street? And that's what you wanted to get readers' attention to share?

 

[PennLady]

Before you finish writing the story? Or can you write to explore, to expand what you knew before you started writing the story?

Sure. I learned a lot working with my beta reader on my last long story. Plus on my Summer Lovin' entry, I wrote it in first-person and that person is a guy. And now I can store all that up for possibly applications to future stories.

 

[sr71plt]

Well, there you go. (And there you are.)

 

[lovecraft68]

I think I went the other way from a lot of writers.

IMO why would I write what I know? If I know it, then its not as much fun.

Where I do tend to what I know is I based a lot of my stories in RI. At first it was because I know the locale so I never have to stop and look up the name of a restaurant or the location of a good hotel or all the little details that can stop you while you "research" them.

Now I think I do it as a bit of a homage to HPL who based so many of his works right here in RI and I think my steady readers now see it as a bit of a calling card in my work here.

 

[sr71plt]

This message is hidden because lovecraft68 is on your ignore list.

Is lovecraft68 still running that personal attack against me in his signature line? Because as long as he does, he doesn't exist here for me. Each time he posts with that is a personal attack against me and an example of Scouries-like posting behavior. (And I stand by the sentence he quotes from me. I don't see anything evil--or uninformed, for that matter--in voicing that opinion, even though it was ripped out of context.)

 

[PennLady]

This message is hidden because lovecraft68 is on your ignore list.

Is lovecraft68 still running that personal attack against me in his signature line? Because as long as he does, he doesn't exist here for me. Each time he posts with that is a personal attack against me and an example of Scouries-like posting behavior. (And I stand by the sentence he quotes from me. I don't see anything evil in voicing that opinion, even though it was ripped out of context.)

Sorry, can't help there. I don't have sigs displayed.

 

[sr71plt]

Sorry, can't help there. I don't have sigs displayed.

Then you are saved from some of the exhibition of lovecraft68 being juvenile and little different from Scouries. (And now you know that each time he posts, he has a personal attack against me appended to the post.)

 

[PennLady]

Well, there you go. (And there you are.)

Well, I think if you don't learn a little something from each story you write, then you fall into a pretty boring rut. I'm not saying you have to learn a profound truth or anything, but just a little stretch of ability, even if you fail, is something to strive for. Whether it works or not, you can base future efforts off of that.

 

[Bramblethorn]

So that leaves all of the science fiction and fantasy writers out?

SF might stretch it here and there, but there's still a lot of relevance.

If you're writing in an established setting (e.g. Star Wars universe), you need to know that setting as well as a historical novelist knows her history, because sci-fi geeks are as fussy as any historian about their beloved canon. The fact that it's all pretend is neither here nor there. (If you really want to start a shitfight, try using the words "female Space Marine" in front of a 40K grognard...)

If you're writing 'hard' SF, you need a solid grasp on the sciences involved. Like most things in writing, you can break the rules intentionally where it seems appropriate, but if you break them through ignorance - or if you miss the obvious consequences of that rule-breaking - readers will not be kind.

For instance, the theory of relativity implies that faster-than-light travel is a form of time travel. You can handwave the existence of FTL spaceships, but if you don't address the causality violations that result, readers will start thinking "this guy knows less than I do about this subject", which is bad.

And in both hard and soft SF, a lot of stories are not solely about the science. Most have a human element, and often it's more important than the science. To pick just one, I doubt Heinlein would've written "Starship Troopers" without his military background, or "The Man Who Sold The Moon" without experience in RL business and marketing.

 

[oggbashan]

Constructed Worlds

Tolkien detailed his fantasy world in massive files. His archives on Lord of the Rings are much larger than the completed novels.

Asimov found that his Foundation series was constrained by the first three novels. Some of his later work had to expand the detail and add much information to the worlds in the original trilogy. But he tried to remain wholly consistent to at least the outline of the early works.

If you are writing fantasy that is based on known constructs such as Star Trek, Star Wars or Dr. Who, readers will be upset and angry if you make a mistake and confuse an Ewok with a Klingon. If you are going to write in those genres you need to KNOW the series initimately.

 

[sr71plt]

(This was written to the post above Ogg's)

Well, no. You can make it all up to suit yourself. That's what others did before you to establish what they want to be "rules" of the genre. The Romance people got away with this "it's gotta be this way" for a while, and I've seen a thread here trying to say there are rules you have to follow for BDSM (and I've seen some on vampires too), but a writer doesn't have to be bound by someone else's genre rules if she/he doesn't want to. That's how fresh themes open up in the market--by busting through the paradigm of someone else's rules about what a genre is.

I think this is an appropriate discussion point in being trapped in the so-called "write what you know" "axiom."