Post 7 – The Myth of “Write What You Know”
Posted on | December 13, 2009 | 4 Comments
We as writers have often heard the dictum or rule to “write what you know.” I first heard this when in grade school, and it really puzzled me. I liked to read fantasy stories and wondered how they were written if that rule were true. When I heard it, I had just read Mary Mapes Dodge’s Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates
In our writing guide, On Writing a Short Story, we talk about this. I call it a myth, here, but only sort of. If you take the notion at face value, as many writing students have done, it will stifle your creativity. Had Jules Verne
However, if you dig more deeply, the dictum has truth. Ms. Dodge didn’t know Holland first hand, but had:
- Done lots of research and
- Imagined herself into it’s environs
Because of this research and daydreaming, she did know the land, and know it well. This is also what Mr. Tolkien had done. He spent years imagining all the lands in Middle Earth, imagining their populations and creatures. He dreamed about them and knew them first hand. I’m sure Bilbo Baggins “spoke” to him, as many characters seem to do to the writers creating them, because Mr. Tolkien imagined him so completely that in his mind the Hobbit had become quite real. Tolkien, then, like Ms. Dodge, did ultimately write what he knew.
We also have the Internet, which writers of past generations didn’t, to do the research. Then we can daydream about the facts to make them viscerally real in your experience. And daydreaming is fun. You can tell your spouse you’re working if they ask why you’re sitting on the couch with that silly blank expression on your face.
I think the originator of the rule had the best of intentions. If you feel stuck, write about what’s in front of you. That is good advice. It’s one of the exercises we recommend in our writing guides and on these blogs. But when it was presented to me, it was communicated to mean “if you try to write about stuff you haven’t experienced, it will be phony, which is bad.”
Thank God I never listened!
~Geoff Hoff
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December 14th, 2009 @ 5:32 am
Hi Geoff,as usually a pleasure to read your “stuff”! ;-D
For fun I read your post and I had the idea to think about creating music instead of writing. You know replace the words that are about writing with creatin music words.. It makes so much sense. I guess there are many similarities between writing and making music.
Can you only create music you know? No! But maybe you have to “visit” the music and create in your mind before you can write it down and play it!
I hope this makes sense…
Claus
December 14th, 2009 @ 1:24 pm
Claus,
To me it makes perfect sense. I suspect most of the things I’ve learned or discovered over the years about the creative process for writing is apt for the creative process for any art.
As a matter of fact, a lot of my “writing” training came from my “acting” training – a lot of the approaches to both work with either!
December 14th, 2009 @ 1:33 pm
I love to read in order to visit other parts of the world and the imaginary ones are so much fun.
The future is created by artist – the imaginers.
Sheila
December 14th, 2009 @ 1:40 pm
Sheila – Yes! Much of the modern technology revolution was first explored in fiction in the Forties, Fifties and Sixties! Did you know that flip phones were first designed to emulate the “communicators” from the original Star Trek? I think that’s very cool!