Fiction Writing Myth #1: Write What You Know

You hear it all the time in creative writing classes, particularly at the college level.  "Write what you know."  Biggest piece of hogwash you'll ever hear.  If it were true, we'd all be writing just memoirs.  And no one would be writing vampire fiction or fantasy or erotica (well, most erotica would be astoundingly boring).  And I don't want to think about who would be the only people qualified to write serial killer stories.

So why do they always say this to you in beginning creative writing classes?  'Write what you know.'  Does that mean I can only write stories set in the late 20th or early 21st century set in New Jersey, New York City, or San Francisco, about rather-boring men who commute to work every day on the train?

Let me give you advice that leads to what I think is intended by this stupid old rule.  Flip it on its head.  Rather than 'write what you know,' think about it as 'Know What You Write.'  You can set your story in another time, another place, even a place you've never been, about a character nothing like yourself.  But you have to get it right.  If you're setting your story in 19th century Paris, know everything you possibly can about 19th century Paris.  What did people wear?  You can't have someone put their cellphone in their jeans pocket, or say, '23 Skidoo, I'm gonna be late!'  Yes, yes, of course there is lee-way, and I'm being drastic with referring to a cellphone in the 19th century.  But you should know what style of clothing people wore and what Paris looked like back then.  I mean, do you really want your character walking into a building that couldn't have been there?  There's no pyramid attached to the front of the Louvre, you know.  You better know.

Yes, even if you're world-building, you have to know your world.  If it takes Bilbo a full days' ride to get from Hobbiton to Bree in one book, you can't have Frodo make the same journey on foot and arrive by noon a few books later.  Everything about your world and your characters has to ring true.  It's all about continuity and not confusing or distracting your readers.

Just like in the movies.  You know it takes them many, many takes to get each scene right.  And someone is there to make sure that if there is a magazine on a coffee table that is spread out and open, it needs to be set that way for every take.  And if no one has come by, and the next scene rolls right in from that one, the magazine can't suddenly be closed.  Unless it's a horror movie, then well, other rules.

For me, Frodo's Nipple is very jarring.  What?  What did I say?  Yes, Frodo's Nipple.  You remember the scene in Rivendell after Frodo wakes up from having been poisoned by the Nazgul blade.  He's lying in bed, and his friends are around him.  There is a super quick cut from one shot to the next as he is bounced upon by his hobbit friends.  In a split second, his shirt goes from being pulled wide open exposing his chest and nipple, and a split second later, as the other hobbit reaches down to hug him, the shirt is pulled closed tightly up to his neck.  That's what it's like when you put jeans on a character in 19th century Paris.  Suddenly I as the reader don't believe you anymore.  OK, silly example.  Here's one that's way more important, because it made me think something else entirely about a scene.

Anyone else remember the movie Jumping Jack Flash, starring Whoopi Goldberg?  Well, if you haven't seen it, and you like slapstick comedy you are missing out, because it is great.  Anyway, in one scene Whoopi's character, Terry Dolittle, returns to her apartment to find it ransacked by the bad guys.  As Terry enters and walks across the living room, behind her is the open bathroom door, and there is clearly something draped over the bathtub.  She turns around, and in the very next shot, it's not there.  Well, I noticed it, because my first thought was that it was a body (arm).  I screamed, 'Someone's in the bathroom!'  I watched the rest of the scene waiting for the person hiding in the bathroom to come out and jump her.  Never happened.  It was just a continuity error.  That's what happens when you get your facts wrong as a writer.

If you set up the rule that the spirits of all the people killed by a magic wand will come out of it in the order in which they were killed, if you screw up the order when the spirits come out, then all your readers will think something is wrong in the story as you told it.  Their minds will stick on the error, and you risk having them meander off your intended storytelling arc.

Yes, you can make things up.  Entire train lines or highways, towns and characters.  You can make someone the mayor of New York City even though we can look back in history and realize that they never existed.  But take care in its doing.  Make sure when your rewrite history, that you do it completely and explain how your reality works and is different from real reality.

We can continue with this whole idea of 'write what you know' in terms of plot, too.  But I think that's a post for another day.  But yes, I usually want to smack people who say, 'How can you write about heartbreak if you've never been in love?'  The same way I can write about stabbing you in your writing hand without having actually done it.  I just can't have you die in three seconds from the wound.