Complex Numbers

Write What You Write

Full disclosure: I don't "know" most of these authors.

    Should You Write What You Know? 31 Authors Weigh In  
From Toni Morrison to William T. Vollman, an Age-Old Question Answered

Yes, sometimes I feature articles that are actually about writing. This is one of them, and I'm linking it because I still see arguments about "write what you know." Hell, I participate in them.

Everyone who has ever taken a writing class or read a craft book has heard this piece of writing advice—even if only to have it instantly denounced.

First, we should understand that this is what I'd call subjective advice, as opposed to objective advice (an example of which would be "send your ms to lots of different publishers"). (Whether that's good objective advice or not, I don't know.)

Obviously, I'm not copying all 31 opinions, just the ones I have something to say about.

Nathan Englander: I think what’s behind “write what you know” is emotion. Like, have you known happiness? Have you ever been truly sad? Have you ever longed for something?

That's a take I hadn't considered. I guess if it works, it works. But I think that, for example, a childhood longing for a candy bar is quite different from an adult longing for meaningful companionship.

Kazuo Ishiguro: It encourages people to write a dull autobiography.

And I feel like this is missing the point. It's like the conceit that runs through the movie The Invention of Lying: Since no one can lie, and fiction is lying, the only entertainment available is stodgy guys sitting in chairs retelling the facts of history. Few would actually want that, so it's a stretch to think that this is what "write what you know" implies.

Ursula K. Le Guin: I think it’s a very good rule and have always obeyed it. I write about imaginary countries, alien societies on other planets, dragons, wizards, the Napa Valley in 22002. I know these things. I know them better than anybody else possibly could, so it’s my duty to testify about them. I got my knowledge of them, as I got whatever knowledge I have of the hearts and minds of human beings, through imagination working on observation.

I had to include this one because a) I respect LeGuin a lot; and b) we needed a science fiction/fantasy take on "write what you know."

Zoë Heller: In fact, the injunction is only to know; the business of how you come by your knowledge is left quite open.

And this one gets closer to my own opinion on the subject, which I'll share in a bit.

Toni Morrison: You Don’t Know Anything

I know that this assertion is postmodernist, anti-intellectual bullshit.

Dan Brown: Make the writing process a learning process for you.

I felt physical pain upon realizing that his advice is also close to my own thoughts on the subject. Physical pain, because I've never really liked Dan Brown's writing. I read Da Vinci Code when it came out, but, just before that, I read a (purportedly) nonfiction book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail. And it was clear to me that Brown had read it as well, and "wrote what he knew" from reading that book.

Harry Crews: It’s true that a writer is told by a lot of stupid people, like English teachers...

And I stopped reading there. If you can't respect your teachers, who can you respect?

Gore Vidal:

I'm not going to quote his actual words here, but I encourage you to go and read them because I love a good takedown of the snobbish "literary" genre.

P.D. James: There are all sorts of small things that you should store up and use, nothing is lost to a writer.

Not really sure who this is, but this bit touches on something I've been saying all along, which is that, in general and especially for a writer, there's no such thing as useless knowledge.

Ernest Hemingway: You throw it all away and invent from what you know. I should have said that sooner. That’s all there is to writing.

Appropriately, this is one of the shortest opinions on the list. But, all due respect to Papa, mine is shorter (we're getting to that...)

Jillian Weise: I was told to write poems that cost me something to write them. They cost me a lot.

I'm no expert on poetry, but this tracks.

There's a lot more at the link, pro and con and in between. But I can't help but feel that this wouldn't even need to be a debate if, instead of "write what you know," we all followed the Rule of Waltz:

Know what you write.

(See? Shorter even than Hemingway.)