Which is more true for you, “Write what you know” or “Research,
research, research”?
Get ready for another of my trademarked non-committal
responses.
I’m a big believer in both of these writing truths. I think that you can’t write what you don’t know, but inversely, research can only give facts and can only go so far. So, where does that leave a writer?
With the imagination to take what he or she does know (“we can only possess what we experience… truth, to be understood, must be lived” -- thank you Charlie Peacock), add to that facts about the topic or time period or people involved in the tale, and stir vigorously to create something tasty for a reader’s brain to digest.
Get ready for another of my trademarked non-committal
responses.I’m a big believer in both of these writing truths. I think that you can’t write what you don’t know, but inversely, research can only give facts and can only go so far. So, where does that leave a writer?
With the imagination to take what he or she does know (“we can only possess what we experience… truth, to be understood, must be lived” -- thank you Charlie Peacock), add to that facts about the topic or time period or people involved in the tale, and stir vigorously to create something tasty for a reader’s brain to digest.
We're of the same mind, Sean. My motto is 'write what you know you love.' If everybody confined their writing solely to what they knew, there would be no Lord Of The Rings, no Star Wars, no Narnia or Last Of The Mohicans.
ReplyDeleteIf you invest yourself into your work (as you must), you can't help but put something of what you know into it. The research, the imagination, is dressing for that. There are commonalities in the human experience that surface in good writing. A good writer should be empathic, and bring those things they observe in people out.
Tolkien technically didn't really know a thing about what it was like to be in a pitched battle with Orcs, but he could take all that he saw himself in the Great War and bring forth the truth of those scenes. That's what resonates with fans of his writing today.
Elmore Leonard was never a half-Apache frontiersman, but there is something wonderfully human in his characterization of John Russell (and all his characters) that makes Hombre vivid and real.
Michael Chabon, Richard Matheson, Joe Lansdale, Robert E. Howard (perhaps most of all) - they all write about the fantastic, or about places outside their time, but it works because the research is balanced by truth, and by a love for what you're writing. Otherwise, like you said, it's just a bunch of facts.
Well said, Ed. Thanks.
DeleteBoth of those statements are valid but I don't think telling young writers "Write what you know" really does them any good. I know it didn't do me any good because I didn't know anything. "Write what you love until you know enough to write what you know" doesn't exactly trip off the tongue but I think it's far better advice.
ReplyDeleteI learned "write what you know" as a young writer, but the the person teaching it used it as a starting point for then learning more via research. I was one of the lucky ones.
Delete