Write what you know?

[PennLady]

I have been posting that I thought the interpretation by many writers is that this "axiom" does mean "write only what you know NOW" and that this is being translated into a whole lot of "little perspective" and dull stories here and elsewhere.

I think you're probably right. What you know and what you "know right now" can be different things. I also think that axiom makes people think that they would be best at writing what they've had experience with; i.e., what they know from their own personal exposure to in life.

I've thought about this more since the thread was started and to me, the literal interpretation doesn't make sense. You know, or can know, more than you've had experience with.

 

[blulilacgrl]

I'm sorry but I'm with SR here. Whether you meant to or not, the above post left me with the clear impression that you were saying that SR was wrong in stating that Michener had used researchers to help him with his work.

When I reread the SR post above yours (the one you reacted to), I can make myself imagine that maybe you mistook his words to mean that he was saying that Michener did not research. But to me SR was actually giving Michener as an example to support your statement that some writers hired people to do their research.

So I understand why he was totally surprised by your subsequent outburst. And of course it just went down hill from there, with both of you feeling unjustly accused. And I probably should not get in the middle of it, but I hope you can reconcile with the conclusion that it was a mistake and you actually agree about Michener being a great writer and researcher

You know what Timothy? Thank you. It was late and I was obviously not firing on all cylinders.. I was not reacting to SR's point about researchers, I was reacting to this portion.

You're right there. There was a mention up the line of researchers for Stephen King (I think). That resonates. I was a researcher for James Michener. And appropriate to this thread, anyone who thinks you have to know your subject or not write about it needs to go and look at the breadth and depth of what Michener wrote.

Hence the confusion for me when it became about hiring researchers and/or doing research yourself as I don't see a difference. And like you said it all went downhill from there. [laughs]

As for getting in the middle, eh no worries. It was a lively spirited debate, not a war. It was way too early in the morning and we had a silly disagreement. No harm, no foul, no hard feelings.

Man we probably could have used your objective sense last night. Where were you? [laughs]

 

[TimothyM]

Man we probably could have used your objective sense last night. Where were you? [laughs]

Probably fast asleep, I'm on a different time zone to US.

Anyway, you're welcome, and I'm glad you weren't offended by me butting in and supporting SR. But in any case it's often easier to see what went wrong when you sleep on it and then have a fresh point of view.

I would like tell you that I'm sure SR bears no grudges, but actually I'm not really able to say that with any confidence - mostly because I don't know him well enough. You may have to settle for a polite pretense that the disagreement never happened ;-)

But at least you can enjoy my congratulations on being able to admit that you made a mistake. Takes guts !

Oh - and about the write what you know thing: Nope, I don't buy into that if it means 'by personal experience or research'. Imagination is great and if a writer can convince me that his or her story works, I'm fine with that. I'm a happy supporter of 'the willing suspension of disbelief'. Not that it prevents me from shaking my head at inconsistencies and nonsense, and they can easily ruin the story too. But dull or bad story telling is worse.
If we are talking erotica as in the stuff here at Lit, well apart from SF and fantasy no other genre requires more willingness to accept non-factual stuff than porn. If writers had to stick to write what they know or what is real, erotica sure would be dull ;-)

 

[sr71plt]

Grudges? No, not as long as the attacking doesn't go on for years. I tend to look at each topic/thread as separate. I do, because lovecraft68 and a few others swiftboat my background, tend to get a bit defensive in what I actually do know and actually have done in life. No one likes to have their life taken away from them. I actually did know and have done Michener.

Perhaps this "doing the research" should be pushed a bit. The topic is writing what you know. If you do the research but then fictionalize it by changing what you found out in your research to fit the fiction, you no longer are "writing what you know," are you? You are using your creative imagination and bending "what you know" to serve the story and create your own world.

(Messing with the research, as in the examples I gave on Michener--he moved a valley across a mountain range in Centennial and also brought stories from Idaho into the Colorado setting and in Chesapeake, he messed around with what century elements of his story were in, included real historical characters who had never been to the area, placed the central plantation house "on a hill" on what is a marsh, and widened the Choptank river so that he could get his fictional ships up to his plantation location). Writing fiction gives you that leeway. And you have busted the paradigm of "write what you know."

And as far as The Source, one of my favorite books of all time, the research was on a series of tells in Iraq, not the single one at Megiddo, Israel, where he bases the book. The explanation he gave his researchers when once they winced at what he did with their research was (A) Megiddo was kickier, because that's where Armegeddon is supposed to happen, and (B) (because his prejudices were strong) because more Jews buy books than Arabs.

 

[sr71plt]

I was thinking more on this this morning. My first thought was that perhaps "write what you can base on acquired knowledge" would be better than "write what you know." But then I thought, no, that's probably good for nonfiction, but this is fiction. So, maybe "write what your imagination can make believeable to the reader" would be closer--recognizing that research is part of the process.

 

[blulilacgrl]

No grudges here either. I don't mind a good healthy debate as long as it doesn't descend into personal attacks. SR and I disagreed, that's all. On another thread we might be in total agreement. So no worries.

"write what your imagination can make believeable to the reader" [laughs]

Interesting twist.

Maybe it's the researcher in me, but I still feel that accuracy in some things is paramount. I understand what you are saying about changing some things, for that I allow artistic license. But as a reader I will suspend disbelief only so far.

For example... I might allow that George Washington & Benjamin Franklin were secret gay lovers in the interest of a storyline but I will balk at the notion that they made out in the back of a Model T Ford.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

I was thinking more on this this morning. My first thought was that perhaps "write what you can base on acquired knowledge" would be better than "write what you know." But then I thought, no, that's probably good for nonfiction, but this is fiction. So, maybe "write what your imagination can make believeable to the reader" would be closer--recognizing that research is part of the process.

I think you're getting close, but there are some matters where factual inaccuracies just destroy my enjoyment of a story. Any time I read a story involving my profession or anything else with which I have a genuine expertise, a factual error--or a string of them, as is most often the case--ruins the story for me. Once I determine that the author knows nothing about that part of the story, I start to question everything else on the page. If I can't trust the author to get the facts right, I'm going to have a hard time investing myself in the speculative part of the story.

 

[oggbashan]

...

Maybe it's the researcher in me, but I still feel that accuracy in some things is paramount. I understand what you are saying about changing some things, for that I allow artistic license. But as a reader I will suspend disbelief only so far.

For example... I might allow that George Washington & Benjamin Franklin were secret gay lovers in the interest of a storyline but I will balk at the notion that they made out in the back of a Model T Ford.

Shakespeare could get away with it.

He had a clock chiming in his play Julius Caesar.

But we aren't Shakespeare.

 

[sr71plt]

I think you're getting close, but there are some matters where factual inaccuracies just destroy my enjoyment of a story. Any time I read a story involving my profession or anything else with which I have a genuine expertise, a factual error--or a string of them, as is most often the case--ruins the story for me. Once I determine that the author knows nothing about that part of the story, I start to question everything else on the page. If I can't trust the author to get the facts right, I'm going to have a hard time investing myself in the speculative part of the story.

I hear you. The James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun was filmed in Bangkok when I was there (although it purported to be in Saigon), and people in Bangkok went to showings of it four and five times, not to follow the plotline, but to laugh at where locations were spliced together. I worked at the top of one of the only high rises at the time, the Chokchai building. In the film a car smashes into the first-floor glass front of this building. But of course there were several barriers it would have to go through to get there in real life.

Similarly, Evan Almighty was filmed practically in my backyard. And it ends with a reservoir in the Blue Ridge (the Sugar Hollow reservoir in real life) bursting and carrying Evan's arc all the way to the steps of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. -- 115 miles and more than a few hills away from the Blue Ridge at that point.

I can't think of the name of the film now, but it was a naval officer thriller set in Washington, D.C., and in the chase scenes, the protagonist kept popping up from the subway in all sorts of hilarious places--most of them in places where the subway doesn't run. It completely ruined whatever else was going on in the film.

 

[oggbashan]

There is a film company in my North Kent seaside town now.

They are producing scenes set in Great Yarmouth - because my town is a cheaper location.

During the opening sequence of a Bond movie, the setting is the Rock of Gibraltar. At one point a blazing Landrover careers down a road on the upper part of the Rock. It has to traverse the same bit of road three times to get the length of action in, but clever editing makes the road seem continuous.

PS. The vault in Fort Knox featured in the Bond movie Goldfinger was shot in the cellars of the Bank of England.

 

[PennLady]

I can't think of the name of the film now, but it was a naval officer thriller set in Washington, D.C., and in the chase scenes, the protagonist kept popping up from the subway in all sorts of hilarious places--most of them in places where the subway doesn't run. It completely ruined whatever else was going on in the film.

Not sure if it's the film you're thinking of, but No Way Out, with Kevin Costner, would fit that bill. I remember him popping up in a Georgetown Metro station, which made me laugh since there isn't one there. Plus he slid down the spaces between the escalators, which are covered with raised metal cylinders to prevent just such a thing.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

Not sure if it's the film you're thinking of, but No Way Out, with Kevin Costner, would fit that bill. I remember him popping up in a Georgetown Metro station, which made me laugh since there isn't one there. Plus he slid down the spaces between the escalators, which are covered with raised metal cylinders to prevent just such a thing.

There is a film company in my North Kent seaside town now.

They are producing scenes set in Great Yarmouth - because my town is a cheaper location.

During the opening sequence of a Bond movie, the setting is the Rock of Gibraltar. At one point a blazing Landrover careers down a road on the upper part of the Rock. It has to traverse the same bit of road three times to get the length of action in, but clever editing makes the road seem continuous.

PS. The vault in Fort Knox featured in the Bond movie Goldfinger was shot in the cellars of the Bank of England.

I hear you. The James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun was filmed in Bangkok when I was there (although it purported to be in Saigon), and people in Bangkok went to showings of it four and five times, not to follow the plotline, but to laugh at where locations were spliced together. I worked at the top of one of the only high rises at the time, the Chokchai building. In the film a car smashes into the first-floor glass front of this building. But of course there were several barriers it would have to go through to get there in real life.

Similarly, Evan Almighty was filmed practically in my backyard. And it ends with a reservoir in the Blue Ridge (the Sugar Hollow reservoir in real life) bursting and carrying Evan's arc all the way to the steps of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. -- 115 miles and more than a few hills away from the Blue Ridge at that point.

I can't think of the name of the film now, but it was a naval officer thriller set in Washington, D.C., and in the chase scenes, the protagonist kept popping up from the subway in all sorts of hilarious places--most of them in places where the subway doesn't run. It completely ruined whatever else was going on in the film.

Geographical inconsistencies in movies and TV don't bother me as much as they used to. When Miami Vice was on we laughed at the impossible geographical remapping of South Florida that occurred in every episode, like taking the causeway to South Beach and parking in front of a building in Coconut Grove, driving the wrong way on the freeway, or getting from the Everglades to downtown in five minutes. These don't bother me so much any more, as I've come to appreciate the fact these media are about telling a visual story, and the actual locations of the sets are, for the most part, irrelevant. In fact, many shows aren't even shot in the locales they where they are set. It does bother me, however, when well-known landmarks are used improperly, or distances between actual points are dramatically altered.

I watched 24 for years and wondered how much violence they producers were doing to the LA landscape.

 

[3113]

Suspension of disbelief

DThe axiom "write what you know" is not about whether you should write or not. It is to prevent someone from writing about a subject they are ignorant of and looking like an idiot.

I think it's less about looking like an idiot (though that does come into play), then ruining the reader's suspension of disbelief.

Which, I believe, is the whole point of the "write what you know" axiom. Not only to make sure that the author writes a good story--because all that stuff you know helps in the story writing process giving you plot, character, etc.--but because it also helps the reader suspend their disbelief. As pointed out, you don't want to write a military novel if you don't know the ranks, not only because you, the author, will look stupid, but because you'll stop the story dead in its tracks for most readers. The mis-ranked-ranks will make them stumble as they read, especially if its repeated. I say most readers because those wanting to read a military novel likely know the "ranks." Just as those reading Regency romance novels usually know the Regency era.

That said, if the writer and reader have an agreement--one that says, upfront, that the writer will be breaking a few rules but will give the reader a great time if they go along with it, then the author can either "not" know something or ignore what they know. The now infamous "50 Shades" certainly didn't know either its BDSM or America come to that (the slang is all British). But it gave readers what they wanted and they ignored all that. Rather like one ignores the number of calories when eating a dessert. There is no enjoying it otherwise

Of course, if the writer doesn't fulfill this agreement (the dessert tastes terrible), they'll not only lose the reader but, like the boy who cried wolf, any credibility for future stories. I just caught a glimpse of the latest "Three Musketeers" which is steam-punk-meets-martial-arts version. I knew this, and I was willing to ignore what I knew about the original book, ignore what I knew about 17th century history (including costuming which would make most of those martial arts moves impossible), 17th century levels of technology, etc.--IF the makers of the film had delivered a great, fun film.

Alas, they did not, and so what they did not know or totally ignored only added to the badness. You end up with that old Jewish joke: "The food here is terrible," says one old lady, and the other responds, "Yes, and such small portions." In this case: "What a horrible film!" and "Yes, and they were completely inaccurate..."

 

[sr71plt]

Not sure if it's the film you're thinking of, but No Way Out, with Kevin Costner, would fit that bill. I remember him popping up in a Georgetown Metro station, which made me laugh since there isn't one there. Plus he slid down the spaces between the escalators, which are covered with raised metal cylinders to prevent just such a thing.

Yep, that's the one. Thanks.

 

[bashfullyshameless]

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?

I dunno. I've never been in a fight, but I write about lots of those. I've never had lesbian sex, or a threesome, but I write a good bit of that, too.

I generally try to at least look things up or ask around when I'm going outside what I know. I've been poking at several of my lawyer friends lately about how criminal trial procedures work and such because I don't want to just go off of TV. I spend a lot of time googling up historical articles, or articles on this or that profession, just because I don't want to sound like a moron when I write outside my experience. But I honestly feel that's a lot of what a good writer SHOULD do.

I had a lifelong martial arts student ask me, after reading one of my fistfight-heavy stories, how long I had studied and what I practiced, 'cause he got the feeling I must have done a lot of martial arts in my time. All I could do was shrug and smile and say I've had a grand total of six months of half-assed karate spread out over fifteen years or so. I just took the time to think things through and look up the actual names of moves and such, and lo and behold it made my writing sound convincing. That made me feel good.

 

[sr71plt]

I have a whole book with a martial arts motif. I had to pretty much make up terms and positions of a separate form of it for the few references I needed. (A common error in writing is in "showing off" too much--regurgitating all that nifty research you did even though it does nothing to serve the plot or characterizations). I gave everything a Mandarin term that translated meaningfully and sounded "oh, yeah" and was hazy about it all--invoking only what was needed for the plot. And I've yet to receive a complaint. It was all made up, so it didn't clash with any "rules" an anal retentive reader would cite. As noted before, I don't recognize the authority for "rules" in such genres as BDSM, Romance, or vampires/ghosts anyway.

 

[TimothyM]

Insulting your audience

I think the worst is when you've been enjoying a film or a book and then the end is totally ridiculous and out of sync with everything else. Especially if you feel that the author or film makers think they can get away with something completely stupid because it tells me that they think their audiences are idiots.
I'll never forget how offended I was as a child (or maybe young teenager) when I watched the first Superman movie. It was great - right up to the moment Superman turned back time by spinning the Earth the other way round ! I was like "WTF - do you take me for an imbecile or what ?" My enjoyment of the whole movie was ruined and I never ever forgave them.
Anybody know who the fools were that came up with that idea and whether they ever got the berating they deserved ??

 

[AllardChardon]

I wrote about a French Catholic Madam from New Orleans, who owns a high-call parlor house, situated in Great Salt Lake City in 1857, for the first book of my trilogy .

I am neither French nor Catholic and have never been to New Orleans and no one living is from 1857. I do a lot of research to fill in the gaps. For that, the internet is priceless.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Well, I've only been called out for errors a time or two (putting a girl as a cheerleader at Texas A&M being the one that got the most howls) and it burned my fingers badly enough to make me want to be more sure of my details in the future. Other than that, as you said, dear, the Internet is priceless. As a plain vanilla, monogamous straight guy, my erotic fiction would be pretty bland without it. Not that I wouldn't like to try out some of the things I imagine . . .

But as we seem to have reached a consensus on 'either write what you know personally or can find out with good research' as being the more logical/reasonable approach I want to add my vote in favor.

 

[datedsoul]

This is an idea I plan to test. So far, my characters and settings have been things with which I am at least partially familiar. My next challenge is going to be a first-person lesbian story. As a straight male, with no gay female friends, (not by choice, I just don't have many friends at all) I'll be working strictly from research material.

I guess we'll see how it turns out.

 

[TimothyM]

putting a girl as a cheerleader at Texas A&M being the one that got the most howls.

OK enlighten an ignorant Dane: what's wrong with that ?

 

[sr71plt]

OK enlighten an ignorant Dane: what's wrong with that ?

Texas A&M is (or at least was) an all-men's school. We had similiar issues at UVA for years. It too was an all-men's school for most of its history (with all-men cheerleaders).

 

[sr71plt]

I'll never forget how offended I was as a child (or maybe young teenager) when I watched the first Superman movie. It was great - right up to the moment Superman turned back time by spinning the Earth the other way round ! I was like "WTF - do you take me for an imbecile or what ?" My enjoyment of the whole movie was ruined and I never ever forgave them.
Anybody know who the fools were that came up with that idea and whether they ever got the berating they deserved ??

Well, now, I think you ran up against the "can't please them all all of the time" thing coupled with a Hollywood decision ions ago (because it worked) of pitching its movies to different age levels simultaneously to get both child and mom/dad butts in the seats and happy.

The early James Bond movies were famous for just what you mention, I think. The kiddies went "oh wow neat" literal impressed with the gadgets and the adults in the audience laughed with appreciation at the audacity and, often, punnishness of them. You probably were just in an awkward between stage when you saw the Superman movie. Order it up and give it a spin again. You might see all sorts of stuff in it now that you didn't see then.

 

[TimothyM]

You probably were just in an awkward between stage when you saw the Superman movie. Order it up and give it a spin again. You might see all sorts of stuff in it now that you didn't see then.

But I would still see Superman making time go backwards by stopping the rotation of Earth, making it rotate the other way, and once his girl was alive again, make Earth rotate the right way and have time go forwards again. Come on, that concept just so FUCKING STUPID, it's unbelievable !

And NOTHING will make me suspend my disbelief enough to accept that - and no matter how good the rest of the film is, it does not compensate for that huge gaff. Some ignorant script writer though it looked great on paper, and a bunch of equally ignorant idiots (the producer, the instructor and who ever else makes these decisions) actually went along with it.

And yes it's just the kind of mistake that film guys would make - but why wasn't there even ONE person with a bit of scientific sense that told them this was just too far out ? If I could see the absurdity of this as a kid, I'm not going to react any different as an adult, am I ? I'll still feel they are mocking me or being too stupid to deserve me wasting my time on their film.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I think you're getting close, but there are some matters where factual inaccuracies just destroy my enjoyment of a story. Any time I read a story involving my profession or anything else with which I have a genuine expertise, a factual error--or a string of them, as is most often the case--ruins the story for me. Once I determine that the author knows nothing about that part of the story, I start to question everything else on the page. If I can't trust the author to get the facts right, I'm going to have a hard time investing myself in the speculative part of the story.

I read different things for different reasons, so my tolerance for errors varies from book to book. e.g. one of the reasons I enjoyed early Tom Clancy was that he gave the impression of verisimilitude. When he lost that in later books, I didn't have any reason to keep reading; I'm sure he could've afforded a few fact-checkers, but by then he'd reached the point where he could've released "Tom Clancy's The Yellow Pages" and had a guaranteed audience, so maybe he just didn't think it was worth the effort.

OTOH, if I'm reading an author because I like their characters or their plots, I might be more willing to overlook a few bloopers.

I hear you. The James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun was filmed in Bangkok when I was there (although it purported to be in Saigon), and people in Bangkok went to showings of it four and five times, not to follow the plotline, but to laugh at where locations were spliced together. I worked at the top of one of the only high rises at the time, the Chokchai building. In the film a car smashes into the first-floor glass front of this building. But of course there were several barriers it would have to go through to get there in real life.

My partner found The Matrix (shot in Sydney) very jarring for the same reason; there's one scene early on where people are talking in a car, and the view on the left side of the car was miles away from the view on the right.