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.

How much is too much? Or even worse...

As an editor, I've heard several authors who were writing erotica or erotic romance or just straight up romance ask me the all-important question, 'Do you think there's too many sex scenes in my book?'  While I will say there is definitely a point at which some reader somewhere might be making her way through your book and think, 'Wow, enough is enough already,' I just wish I would hear just one author one time ask me the way more important question of, 'Do you think I need to add more sex?'

The only fatal problem I've ever found in the areas of erotica or erotic romance with regard to how much sex is in the book is 'not enough.'  I slogged my way through one terribly written cliche after cliche novel recently that was supposed to be erotic suspense, and at the end I realized that in about 250 pages there were 2 sexual situations, and one of them was a blowjob.

I've heard so many people try to explain it a certain way.  Answers I've heard range from 'every other chapter' to 'every character at least one' to 'every X number of pages.'  I actually like using that last one just as a writer's check in revising, but I do not profess it as an overarching rule.  Yes, I will suggest to a writer, go back and read through your entire book and mark the frequency of sexual situations, but overall, I hope no one approaches the telling of a story with a strict measuring stick for the juicy parts.  Sometimes one sexual scene will actually lead straight into another one, whether by effect of the plotline or placement of characters or whatever the reason.  Other times you will need to further your story along a little bit in order to get it told.  I mean, if you have your heroine lost in the woods all alone, not knowing if she'll ever get out or get found, you can't really throw in a sex scene.  Unless you're going to go with masturbation, dream, or flashback, but those are really really hocky constructs if there's no plot reason for them.

So I hope that's enough contradiction for you today.  Ever notice how writing advice never gives you a clear answer and tends to contradict itself?  Don't plan your sex in a per-page way, but when you finish writing your manuscript, go through and see for yourself how often the sex happens.  I know, I"m not very much help.  So let me just leave you with an old adage and a new one.

You've heard the old adage, 'Less is more.'  Right?  Well fuck that, here's your new adage, 'More is more.'  Geez, did I really juse use the word adage?  What an old fart.

Who Just Got Published!?!

Yes, it's true!  My novelette, THE TALE OF THE FARMER'S SECOND SON, is now up and available for sale on Amazon.  (coming soon on other retailer sites and device stores).  It's available for your Kindle now.  Or if you have a smart phone (iPhone, iPad, etc), you can download the free Kindle app and buy and read it through the app.

My fun little fairy tale of two brothers and a farm in a quiet little valley village by the forest.  I wanted to harken back to the language and feeling of old traditional fairy tales.  Not exactly for children, this tale isn't full of Prince Charming and Happily Ever After.  I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.  I think that's why I call it, 'Delightfully Evil.'  Click on the link below to buy it for your Kindle or for your Kindle app on your smart phone:

Get Your Facts Straight About Facts

Now, I don't think you need me to tell you that when you're building your world, and even more importantly when you're setting your story in a real world setting, you should really pay attention to the details.

Remember that Will Smith movie where it starts out he's chasing an alien through the streets of New York, was it Men in Black?  And he jumps off the overpass  that rings around Grand Central Station.  And two blocks later they're running passed the Gugenheim.  That's like 40 blocks!  I know, I know, it could be they were going for time-lapse, but it still bothered me.

Well, it's the same in your novel.  Even if you invented the fictional town your story is set in.  It can't take someone twenty minutes to bike across town at one point in your story, then later they run over quickly to warn someone about something.  A lake has to be where a lake is, for the whole story.

One of my favorite books from the last year or so is The Language of Flowers, by Vanessa Diffendough.  The story is amazing, but what is so impressive is the perfection with which she paints San Francisco.  There is a community garden on a corner where she says it is.  I can even picture exactly where her character walks in a public park and finds flowers and trees and bushes specifically placed.  Now, yeah, if you don't know San Francisco, it doesn't matter.  But since I do, the book is that much more magical.

So even if you're creating a completely fictional town, I strongly urge you to draw it out in detail in your mind.  Know where every house, every store is.

Now, let's talk about what your characters know, and what they don't know.  If Mary wasn't there for a conversation between John and Sue, Mary can't know what they talked about.  She can't know what was divulged to whom by whom.  And once they know something, they know it.  I just read a book where something was explained to a character in the beginning.  Then later in the book, he doesn't know it again and he's told the same thing again.  Now he could have forgotten, but no, it's obvious the author forgot the character had been told something earlier.  It's just not clean writing.  If you're telling a story, keep your facts straight!  And actually, you have to keep everyone's facts straight!  What all your characters know, what they're aware of, what they think, how they feel about someone or something.  Particularly if you're writing a mystery!!!

OK, time to head to the beach, more later...

May the Road Rise Up to Meet You, by Peter Troy

 It's been a while since I posted, so let me say first, I've started a new job.  I'm now, well, since August, it's been that long since I've posted much on here, I'm now, as I was saying, senior acquisitions editor for AudioGO.  We publish unabridged audiobooks, as linked to below, but also I am launching into original publishing, looking for new and established authors.  We are looking forward into the new digital world and have a unique publishing program that will focus on eBook and audio publishing for the books that we publish.  I don't want to be one of those folks that screams that 'print is dead,' but this new digital world creates opportunity to get new exciting authors and innovative, edgier books published.  We hope to expand out of the common and into the innovative, challenging, and experimental.  More to come, always.

TG -- but not yet!

Write a five-minute scene.  Set up: an office worker desperately trying to leave the office early on the day before Thanksgiving.  An email goes around from the big boss telling everyone they can leave early.  But our hero's manager has asked him/her to get one thing done urgently before they leave.  As everyone else piles out of the office, what's going on in the life of our hero?  Does he/she get it done; stay late; does bedlam ensue, maybe nothing seems to be going right; or does he/she bag it in dramatic fashion?  Have fun.  Maybe try a little farcical scene...

As always let me know what you think of the exercise.

Writing Exercise: The Message

Here's an exercise in dialogue/monologue/rambling... you've all heard of it. Perhaps you've done it.  Drunk-dialing an ex in the middle of the night.  Maybe you ran into them in a bar.  Maybe it's a recent break-up.  Maybe something reminded you of them.  Who broke up with whom?

Here's a writing exercise.  Your character drunk-dials an ex in the middle of the night after being out.  But it goes straight to voicemail.  Write the message that he/she leaves on the voicemail.  Have fun with this one.  Think about what they would say to an ex.  Think about when it ended, how it ended, why this character is driven to dial, why the phone wasn't picked up on the other end, and most importantly, your character is drunk.

Enjoy.

As always, comment on here and let me know what you think of the exercise.  Email me if you enjoyed it or want to show me your homework.  I'll read and review it.