Blog 27: Write what you know

Tomorrow is National Nude Day, which my youngest daughter celebrates daily!  This is due to her struggles with sensory issues, so as soon as she gets through the front door after school, she whips off the majority of her clothing. We often joke that she would feel quite at home in a nudist camp. We’ve put net curtains up in the front room window to enable her to prance about in the nuddy, and no one walking past the house will get an eyeful. And, if we get any visitors, she throws on a fleece blanket and walks about like someone from ancient Rome.

It will also be Pandemonium Day, which, if you haven’t already realised from the posts about my kids and the antics that go on, is also something we seem to partake in on a regular basis. Yes! We eat chaos for breakfast, snack on disorder at lunch,  and serve up the unexpected with a side order of disruption for our evening meal. Thinking outside the box is the norm when you have two additional needs children.

I could write a book about living with a naked girl and the highs and lows of parenting children with autism and ADHD. I know them and their difficulties so well that I am able to think ahead and avoid things that will cause issues, while including activities they will enjoy, as long as I help them. I can certainly write what I know.

And there it is, another common piece of advice that gets offered to a lot of writers. But, of course, common sense tells us that this can’t possibly be correct. If it was, C.S. Lewis actually went to Narnia, then returned through the wardrobe and wrote about it? What about J.R.R. Tolkien, did he find Middle-earth and meet the hobbits? Do we believe H.G. Wells encountered Aliens? And, how did Stephen King fare when he met a vampire? Did he get bitten, and is he living as a creature of the night right now? Has anyone managed to get a good look at his teeth lately to confirm this? Let’s face it, there are a lot of fantastical stories that have not been written from the author’s firsthand experience. So if that is the case, why do people give this particular piece of advice?

If all we did was ‘write what we know’, we wouldn’t have genres such as fantasy, sci-fi, and historical fiction, unless, of course, there is someone around who is very, very old. So what does it actually mean? If you have experienced something and know a lot about it, you can certainly write about it, and that lived knowledge will come across as authentic. However, there are other ways of gaining information. Research! Now, this was a bit of a dirty word for me, and quite a few of my university colleagues when we were writing essays.

If your story is about something that you don’t know a lot about, chances are, you are going to need to research it. If it's about a particular period in time, then you would look up how the people lived, what they wore, how they spoke, and find out about events that were going on at that time. This is also the case for different types of characters, such as someone with a specific health condition. Research can be done in different ways; you can also interview people who have experience, and gain knowledge from them. Margaret Atwood likes to write stories taken from fact, and based The Handmaid’s Tale on events that occurred in history - that woman does a whole lot of reading!

However, what about something a little different? Sci-fi and fantasy, fiction about monsters and supernatural beings? Research is still your friend! You have probably read genres that you also like to write about. All this reading experience can be a great way to give you ideas. Inspiration for these creative stories can come from a lot of places. The internet, books, TV, travelling to different places, and talking to fellow writers are all good ways to form ideas. Characters can be based on people you know or know of. I have a friend who creates character profiles, which is a great idea. The more you know about them, the more realistic they will become to you and your readers. The same is true for settings, buildings, rules relating to the society in your world, or traditions they have.

Rachel J Kinner, the fantasy writer, whom I interviewed for a blog a few months ago, gets very vivid pictures of the worlds in her books and has therefore described them clearly on the page. Having a solid idea of who your characters are and the world they live in is a great way for you to get to know them and bring them to life. Some writers have a whole filing system with information purely for them to become familiar with their story content.

You can still add elements from places you have been, people you have met, and experiences you have had, and these can be great additions to weave in and give your personal touch. So, whether it's what you know or what you are about to know, you can get it on the page and make it great!

Writing Exercise

For this week’s task, I would like you to write about something that you don’t yet know. Yes, I’m using the R word, and asking you to research something. It could be about a serial killer, a soldier, an astronaut, or perhaps someone taken out of history. You could use a setting that is familiar to you, or keep doing research and look up somewhere unfamiliar, such as a prison.

Whatever you decide, keep working on it until you know it so well that you get a clear picture of what you are writing, then share it! I would love to see what your research has helped you to create.

See you next time.