We’ve all heard the “write what you know.” phrase. If you’re a writer, it’s sort of a rite of passage to hear that at least 324 times. (So I exaggerate a little. I only heard it 312.) That phrase has been interpreted in a lot of ways, depending on how literal you are. Understanding this phrase was the secret of success that everyone knew. (Or at least pretended to understand.) It was clearly a concept I should inherently get.
I didn’t.
Write what you know could mean I should only write about marketing manager/fiction authors who are married, have a 9 year old kid, a dog and love popcorn. Wow. Even I know I’m not that exciting. Who would read that? (Is there another married marketing manager/fiction author with a kid, a dog, and a bowl of popcorn on their lap out there? If so, we might be soulmates.) It could mean I should only write about white chicks who never tan, because yup, that I know. It could mean I should never write the POV of a man, because — well, that, I’m not.
I’m also not a debutante in 1820s England. Hell, I’m far away from being a debutante today. (I watched Gilmore Girls. I’m still scared by that flower dance or whatever it was Rory had to endure.)
Write what you know isn’t literal. But it is real, and it’s different for everyone.
What it really means is what DO you know? What have you felt? What have you regretted? Who have you loved? Where have you daydreamed? When have you wished for something more? Where have you been in life? (And I don’t mean the Grand Canyon. But hey, I’ve been there. It’s cool.)
Write what you know means that in every story, there is an emotional element that connects to something you understand in only the way you can understand it. That means you’ve been through the emotions. Maybe the situations are vastly different, but the core of every situation breaks down to basic emotions. Basic needs, and we all feel them.
Shall we test this theory?
I write historical romantic suspense. I don’t have intimate knowledge of living in 1820s England. I can research like the best of them, but getting into the magic of that world isn’t something I know. That is something I learn, peppered in with a lot of something my imagination weaves around the facts.
What I do know, what we all know is emotion. Messy, untidy emotions. The emotions we deal with today aren’t that different from what people dealt with then. We love, we hate, we get angry, we feel heartbreak. We understand insecurity, so did they. We know what it feels like not to be enough. We know how it feels when you’re lost, when you don’t know where you belong. When you’ve lost touch with a friend who once was the closest person in your life and you’re at a loss as to how to get that back. When the person you loved most lets you down.
You know that feeling when you make a friend, a true friend who makes you smile, whose happiness matters to you and yours matters to them. You remember that buzz in your heart when you meet the person destined to be the love of your life. That moment when you realize you have fallen, and fallen hard, for the best person in the world. And for some of you, that moment when your child enters your life and you understand, for the first time, what love beyond comprehension truly feels like. When it’s not theoretical anymore, it’s living, breathing and probably crying in your arms.
Those things we know. Those things, we understand.
So. Write what you know.
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I imagine we all have those moments that are picture perfect in our heads. In each story I’ve written, there’s a part of my heart splashed all over those pages. With SOMETHING ABOUT HER, I understood Blythe’s inability to trust her own judgement after making a horrible choice in who she loved. I know how scary it can be to love again, to trust again when you’ve been hurt and betrayed. With Lily’s story, I intimately empathized with her insecurity, with her inability to believe that she was the first choice of the person she loved. And while I didn’t have a husband who hit his head and lost his memories, I did relate to her fear. If you’ve ever felt insecure about the love of someone, you know how pervasive and sneaky that insecurity can be and how it sticks to you like molasses. I did my best to honor what I knew in her story, and tell those emotions in the most authentic way I could.
With the story I’m writing now, Cordelia’s story —she’s lost about how to find her place with her family. Yup, I’ve got that too. It’s that same loss you feel when friendship changes, when it shifts. It’s that moment when you’re in a room with someone you once felt incredibly close to and realizing who you once were to each other is gone. Your relationship has changed, someone else has filled that spot you once held. You’ve both changed and grown, and finding your new place in each other’s life is hard and sometimes painful. It’s that sadness when you have to let go of what was in order to embrace what it’s become with joy.
Those moments are universal, and at the same time, they are incredibly private. Incredibly real.
Heartbreak. Loss. Love. Joy. Family. Friendship. Those are the things we know, that I know. So those are the things I write about. They just happen to be wrapped up in history, romance, and suspense and sometimes dressed in corsets.
Today’s featured photo by Ally Aubry. Thanks Ally!