The Dumbest Advice Ever
Write what you know.
“Creative writing teachers should be purged until every last instructor who has uttered the words “Write what you know” is confined to a labor camp. Please, talented scribblers, write what you don’t. The blind guy with the funny little harp who composed The Iliad , how much combat do you think he saw?”
–P.J. O’Rourke
Get over yourself. You’re not that interesting. Those ten or twelve maniacs scatching and clawing to get out of your head may be, but not you. But you can tell us about them.
I can only speak for myself, but unless your name is Hugh Hefner or Stephen Hawking, I have no interest in knowing what you know. I may want to know you, but not which direction you comb your back hair or build statues from ear wax and snot. (Well, I might be slightly interested–in a “wha..?” kind of way, but nothing more.)
It’s my belief that you should write what you want to read. The authors I like to read–with the exception of Dean Koontz–can’t seem to pound the pulp out fast enough for me. Tom Robbins, in my opinion, is a genius. He should write four books a year. But the down-side to that would rival the state of the present NHL: volume would dilute the talent, and bring about the slow and steady march toward mediocrity.
Don’t get me wrong, though. You should write what you like, but you’re never going to get away from the fact that you’re writing it from YOUR point of view, giving it YOUR slanted perspective. Given your view on the death penalty, say, you’d probably be a tad more sentimental in constructing a story of an inmate with less than two weeks left to go before he is dragged down that last long corridor.
Project yourself. Be the villain. Be the saint. Be a little girl with a missing tooth and sticky fingers with an all-encompassing love of pink unicorns. Maybe you’ve never pasted a whole book of pretty ponies and colourful doggie stickers to the surface of your daddy’s oak desk, but you can regress yourself back to a time in your life when something like that might have been your cup of cocoa–then write about it. Writers are actually quite boring. And whiney. And verbose (about subjects that normal folk couldn’t give a rat’s ass to know about). Don’t be you, be them; any of those voices struggling for control in your head would be more than glad to take the reins for a while. If you don’t know enough about “them” to pull it off without guessing at most of what you want to write, then do some research, feel creepy and hang out in a chat-room frequented by your target character. I did this very thing for a couple of teen characters from my novel, “Dropcloth Angels”.
The only thing you “know” that should be in your writing is your talent and boundless curiosity, nothing more.