I Love Writing: Write What You Know: classic or dud?

You know, that old caveat that is always handed down as the first rule of writing convincing fiction.

I'm of two minds on this. On one hand, it's fairly staggeringly obvious that one should only attempt to tackle topics of which you have at least an operating understanding of. (And flags up the need to do decent research if you are to tackle topics outside your immediate experience.)

However, as Elif Shafak brings up in this interesting talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/elif_shafak_the_politics_of_fiction.html

It's very easy to turn this around into an excuse for marginalisation.

Also, isn't the point of writing fiction sometimes to write things you *don't* know, to exercise your imagination, to dream up things that you couldn't possibly have experienced? Or is this noble dream pointless, as subconscious self expression will always lead you to, essentially, write what you already know, projected into other situations.

What do you think about this old saw? Useful or not?

I suggest trying both approaches; you'll realize which most suits you. Also, how are we defining "dream up things that you couldn't possibly have experienced"? If you mean, creating a fantasy world and populating it with three-headed aliens, fine. But as a gay male "dream up things that you couldn't possibly have experienced" also means writing about women and heterosexual characters, both of which require a certain leap. I do it all the time.

I think you're bang on, really- particularly about the 'do your research' part if you're going to tackle something that a lot of your readers will have experience of, but you may not have yourself.

If you're writing about something more fantastical, well shackles off really- I don't think it needs to be a limiting maxim in that way.

I always use kind of a combination of both. I find it very difficult to write characters with whom I have absolutely nothing in common, for example - I always try to find *something* about them that I identify with, in order to get a handle on them in the first place, even if they are a different gender, age, sexuality, race, whatever from myself.

But I think it's important to do research not to have those jarring "WHOA, I JUST POPPED OUT OF THE STORY THERE" moments when someone is, for example, writing about a city they've never been to, and you know well, and they make an elementary mistake of placement (or, a smiliar elementary mistake of placement within something cultural.)

It did just give me pause, though, when Shafak was talking about how someone complained that her debut novel contained no Turkish females - like there was some kind of literary tokenism going on there, that the reader expected her to write only about Turkish females because she was one - or if she, writing as an outsider about American characters had not done the trick effectively. (Then again, I'm a fan of her work, so it doesn't seem likely.)

But that does kind of go into that whole horrible nebulous idea that "straight white (usually American these days) male" is the only Objective stance to write from, rather than simply being another subjective stance of its own.

I do worry about this, if I'm writing characters from a different culture than my own. Can I possibly get inside their heads? (I'm trying not to reduce them to racial stereotypes, but is it possible for me actually write from this perspective?) What's the alternative? A pretty boring landscape of characters that look and sound just like me. Hrrrrmmm.

But that does kind of go into that whole horrible nebulous idea that "straight white (usually American these days) male" is the only Objective stance to write from, rather than simply being another subjective stance of its own.

no way am i touching that one :)

worst case- writing something you're not sure of, and turning the piece into an instruction manual/synopsis of all the info you can muster on it.

No, I don't want to open the giant Canon debates over here, but it is kind of the Elephant In The Room when talking about these kinds of things. Especially if you watch that video that I posted?

can't at work but will have a look later hopefully.

It's an interesting talk. But I'm not sure she's not contradicting herself, because she starts off the talk with the idea that people seal themselves off in these isolated peer groups of like-minded people, and that the way to break through your own isolated worldview is to read stories from people outside it - or is she saying that the way to break through it is to *tell* stories about people outside it?

I guess it's the latter, because that's where she brings up the tyranny of "write what you know."

I tend to feel this shouldn't matter too much with incidental details, that a writer should be able to do enough with a decent sketch of a place or a person - and then treat the essentials like inner character differently. 'Write what you know' seems much more important there, like I can't imagine writing a true extroverted character because I wouldn't really understand what they were all about. But not all details are like that, and sometimes I feel like eg Ian McEwan's medical bits in Saturday get in the way, much as I enjoy them. He obviously researches thoroughly, but I don't know, I wouldn't be surprised if for all that he still got his emphases all wrong.

Some books, though, like Fortress of Solitude are absolutely steeped in their setting and I can't imagine achieving that without knowing it intimately.

That "I can't imagine writing a true extroverted person" thing is interesting.

Is it possible to write a character whose way-of-being is so completely different from yourself that you can't project yourself into them or their motivations? (as a fully fleshed out character, not an incidental character, I guess.) Could a full-on misogynist write a woman effectively? Could a full-on atheist write a convincing monk? I suppose those are belief systems rather than characteristics. I'm trying to think of dichotomies as fundamental as the introvert/extravert one.

surely that is the very essence of a writer's job!

One would hope. Except I have read many, many not-convincing characters in my life.

(Mind you, mainly in "narrative-driven" fiction where it's not supposed to matter. Or something.)

that is true. i think it requires a real leap of logic (not just faith) to put yourself in the head of – say - a murderer. it is easy to write an "evil murderer" (mwah-ha-ha!) but it takes a lot more work and patience to actually suture yourself to the internal logic and mentality of a self-reflective murderer and write from internality out to action. in other, less mangled words: good writing starts with the character motivations and logics that are then manifested as action, whereas a lot of the time bad writing begins with action and justifies it through character internalities.

That's interesting, because it reminds me about GK Chesterton's writing as Father Brown, that here's this very ordinary little man, and yet he's able to get inside the heads of murderers and thieves through thinking about possibilities and motivations.