It may be the most common writing advice of all time: “Write what you know.” It’s often misunderstood or misapplied; but it means, basically, draw from your own experience, emotion, environment, and passions to produce the most authentic creative work possible … for you.
That’s not bad advice, as far as it goes. But it’s not “gospel.” After all, Nobel honoree Kazuo Ishiguro, author of The Remains of the Day, calls it “the most stupid thing I’ve heard.”
I’m not yet a Nobel prizewinner (nominations are being invited this month), but I mostly agree. I think there’s a better approach: Write what you want to know.
Many of us—especially, may I say, those of us who write from a Christian perspective, fueled by the vast storehouse of divinely inspired biblical wisdom and millennia of church tradition and practice—adopt a somewhat didactic, even stentorian, voice in our writing. We make pronouncements. We have “God’s honest truth” on our side, so we tell our readers what they need to know.
That approach may have worked better when I first began writing in the 1800s, but I’m learning that it’s not the best tack these days. Twenty-first century readers prefer to be participants in the process of discovery. The tone that more often invites and convinces a reader is less “here’s what I know and you should too” and more “Let’s explore this together and see what happens.” It’s more a journey of discovery than a pronouncement from on high.
That doesn’t mean we don’t share biblical truth. Not at all. But it’s much more fun (for reader and writer) to track a journey of discovery and experience that takes both of us to a new place, as companions on the trail.
So try it. Don’t write what you know; write what you want to know … and be … and do ... and see what happens.
If I wrote of what I knew
you’d be bored to to tears,
like the time I went to House Of Brew
to drink my weight in beers,
or the time I jumped from roof to pool; I missed, but ’twas a blast
to have bikini’d girls (so cool!)
line up to sign my cast.
But if they came along with me,
readers and scribe, questing together,
I think it very well might be
a joyous search, not heavy weather,
and we could toast a joy that’s full
in a shared ward in hospital.
While “write what you know” is advice I’ve heard a million times, it’s not something that appeals to me. If I only wrote what I knew, I would be done writing in short order. 😎 Far more useful to change it to your suggested “Write what you want to know.” Both because we are constantly growing in our journey as believers and also because for those of us who love writing historicals, it’s a process of constant discovery about the period you are writing in.
Researching what we don’t know is the best part of writing! haha! Just last night, I researched carnivorous plants for a short story I’ll be co-writing with a friend. It was fascinating!! And a lot more interesting in backyard garden plants, which I know well.
Yes! That’s why I started writing – to figure out Bible accounts I couldn’t wrap my brain around. Research is a rabbit hole I love to go down.
Bob, I recently went to a writing workshop where we looked and and evaluated each other’s writing. One of the writers had his characters dumping ashes in the river that was featured in his story. I asked him, “Is that legal?” He looked at me in surprise. “I guess so,” he replied. I told him that I was going to have a character put her father’s ashes in the beach on the eastern shore of Maryland, only to learn that, to do so, one had to be three miles off shore. He was shocked. Always do your research, whether biblical or secular.
Bob, I like the sense of adventure in your observation, “’Let’s explore this together and see what happens.’ It’s more a journey of discovery …”
Within that kind of writing, the writer fades away … and the reader goes along … chooses to be a member of a crew … toward … the whatever may be found.
We (both writers and readers, as well as the ignorant, the apathetic, and the committed – – all) all have available all the varieties of background/intention/purpose … the innumerable possibilities … of vehicles, don’t we? Another perspective. A fresh view of the already familiar. Something wholly new. Sometimes a reminder. One’s mind gets involved. And, like it or not, meanwhile, there is the heart.
On a deeper, more personal level, there might be the halls and corridors of the conscience, the seen-and-never-before-understood. Like layers of an onion; the Matryoshka dolls, the ones inside another and another. Some never before question admitted, asked; indeed, even the answer may be open-ended. Ungiven. (I know that’s not a word in your dictionary.) Often it is called the “Socratic method.” However, Jesus frequently used questions to prompt such a search. His parables served and remain vehicles for the quest.
Story-telling outweighs lecturing.
Thanx, Bob and the others, for your contributions.
I love this perspective! Thanks for leading the exploration on this topic : )
I enjoyed this. I write as I am led, irrespective of the norms and traditions—my voice. And most importantly, His voice.
God bless you.
Blessings.
Olusola, I concur, “And most importantly, His voice.”
For writer and reader alike, there is the myriad of “voices.” There is that one inside my head. The “Me” voice. Also, memories, accumulated, stored and ready to burst and ooze onto the conscious. There is our Enemy’s – – our Accuser’s ready-taunt. Note: the Liar’s, “No one else understands,” is a favorite. We have friends’ voices – – real and present and distant and true and otherwise. We may carry images. Words. Pictures. Movies. Songs. Lines. Sounds. Poems. Hurts. Habits. Parents’ and others’ voices mentally telling us, yet again, something to fear, someone to be, something to want, something, maybe, to hide. Something else. To try. (Some “favorite sin,” as someone has described it.) The unending, multi-voiced, “What if …?”
Now there are excuses. Reasons. Even “good” ones. We have “plausible deniability” – – a current term, and coming, whatever is and will be the latest.
Then there are the cultural learned and adopted and conditioned responses. Experience(s). Similar connections … responses of my mind. The quote. The debate. The exception. “But, …” Advice and lie, and available, the assumption … the expectation. (There are/is more!)
The truth. The choice is mine. Always.
The “line” may go way off into the recesses, if I let it.
Our God knows all about it all. He knows.
He says, “Hear the Lord God, the Lord, foremost.”
Confirm. Confirm. Confirm.
PS – – Whatever you are going through, you do not have to do it alone.
“And most importantly, His voice.”
Great blog and great advice. Thank you, Bob.
Oh the richest of treasures unlocked. Someone, please hand me a pen!
An expensive camera teetering atop a precariously balanced tripod comes to my mind.
– One leg must be set between *blind leading the blind* and *the curse of too much knowledge*.
– Another must be set between *showing all the family photos of the learning journey* and *showing a few amateur photos of famous landmarks*.
– And the other must be set at the right amount of responsibility to take on–somewhere between *playing fainting goat* and *testing the thickness of Lake Superior ice by driving your car on it*.
Great pix–perhaps viral ones–await once you learn to set up the camera and tripod. Just be sure to hang onto the camera until the tripod is stable.
I spent my professional career in R&D and analytics. I got paid to learn new things and to let people make 5, 6, and a few 7 figure decisions off my designs and recommendations. Mostly a dream job, but the stress of potential consequences caught up with me. I retired early after signs of premature body failure. I’m now applying that research background to figure out how to be a fruitful author who is a Christian, sans self-imposed stress.