Write What You Know...Even if You Know Nothing

There's a bit of seemingly contradictory advice I’ve received over the years:

                                                             Write what you know. 

This is seeminly contradictory because I've also been taught that writers have to know about everything. Fancy a character in a historical setting? Better brush-up on on your knowledge of the time period. What to write a girl with a Spanish heritage? Better remind yourself of the difference between Spanish and Mexican dialects and slang. Is the world endangered by the machinations of a deranged nuclear physicist? Better know that the techno-babel he's spouting off at your protagonist is at least theoretically scientifically correct. 

This kool-aid will be so freaking good. And I'm not even gonna let Jimmy have some. 

Depending on where the story and your own imagination lead you, there is little that you don't have to know. And then I hear the advice that I should "write know I know." 

This is confusing. After giving it some more thought, I think the “write what you know” phrase is taught in an effort to do away with the sheer unapproachability of the blank page.

"I hear cries of fear; there is terror and no peace."

If a student says she doesn’t know what to write, you could do more than tell her to write what she knows. Be specific. Tell her to write about the first birthday party she remembers, then once she has a firm grip on all the characters in that scene, have her take those characters and write another story about them. It’s a way of getting started. 

But one creative writing teacher I had emphasized that writers have to be more than just renaissance men. They have to be really, really good at lying. A writer must know the feeling of steel bars melting right in front of her, otherwise how could she write from a fireman’s point of view? A writer must be able to capture the elation of a nosedive through rains of fire, clinging to the wing-joints of his father’s black dragon, blocking out the whirring of the arrows flying past, even though no such awesomeness actually exists in this pale, worthless reality we call life.  

Ok, maybe it's not so bad. Thanks, Pooh. 

Some people are masters of writing exactly what they know. Some of the very best books were products of this process, and very successfully books. You see, some people write about one location they are familiar with, with a plot centering around one central scandal that they actually experienced, and characters based so strongly in reality they could be ripped directly from their memories.

Let's talk Mark Twain. His boyhood home in Missouri gave him the setting for Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. His father died at 11, giving rise to the sorts of stories of unsuperivsed boys going about their adventures. He also worked on a riverboat on the Mississippi, as a printer, 
a soldier, a miner, and a journalist, and had a passing interest in parapsychology (even being an early member of the Society for Psychical Research).  I see Twain's works as the cumulative collection of his life's experiences combined with a fair amout of education, wit, and genius. 

He also never wore shoes. Ever. 

Then there are those who use something from their own lives. Just a little something, a memory, an experience, a hobby. I like to use Michael Crichton as an example. The guy was a trained doctor, and a very successful one. I think he was probably one of those really annoying people who was very successful at everything he did, but he left some great books behind. Congo, Sphere, Jurrasic Park, and the list goes on. 

Odds are, Crichton didn’t actually experience raising dinosaurs from the dead (though he did apparently experiment with astral projection, aura viewing, and clairvoyance. So he was probably a superhero). But he did know a lot about genetics, and he applied those ideas in every strange, creative way he could imagine. He became disenchanted with the medical industry, deciding to go full time into this writing thing. 

Which led to Chris Patt  making out with Ron Howard's daughter.
We all saw this coming. 

But this is not a skill limited to Michel Crichton. Face it, you know something about something. Hopefully. Maybe you think that something is stupid. Maybe you can’t think of any way to apply it to fiction. Try this—could that something you know ever be used to take over the world? Could that something ever be a really interesting hobby or quirk for a main character? Could that something be used by an enemy for leverage, be corrupted into a weapon, be adapted into a life-saving treatment? What would your something look like in 100 years? 1000 years? This is where fiction comes from.

Personal example. I’ve played trumpet for years. It is almost completely a useless skill expect for the rare occasion someone needs me to play for a wedding, a church needs me for a service, or a friend needs help waking his kids up in the morning. 

Children hate me. 

I was working on a storyline as a combination short story/tabletop rpg I was playing with some friends in college (we were cool). I created a vampire character who was a jazz musician in a large city. He only came out at night cause that’s when the gigs were. He was able to lead a relatively normal life as a musician, and a completely unrealistic life as a vampire. I’ve never been a vampire, but I knew how to write him as a musician. I knew what it feels like to play a gig that falls to pieces, when the audience only claps out of sympathy. I know the rush of a show well-played, honest cheers, catching the eyes of fellow musicians. So I wrote about that. All the vampire stuff in-between, that came as it would.

Write what you know doesn't mean giving up and retelling your trip to Europe over and over again. But it does mean you can use that as a starting point.