Yes, the title is correct. Rather than “write what you know,” I believe you should know what you write.
I’m a native New Yorker, transplanted to the West Coast. In my early writing classes I was told, “write what you know.” What the heck did that mean? I couldn’t write about Alabama or Vancouver because I wasn’t from there?
When I was sixteen, I was strolling through Manhattan, minding my own business. I came across a group of tourists looking up and pointing, shooting pictures at something in the sky. What was it? I looked up and realized they were photographing a tall building. Big deal. So I walked to the building in question and saw a plaque that read Empire State Building. Aha. This was the famous Empire State Building.
I lived in NYC but didn’t even appreciate what was around me. On the other hand, when I moved to San Diego, I scouted out every attraction, neighborhood, restaurant, park and beach within the first two months. I knew San Diego better than San Diegans and often surprised them with my knowledge. My point is that growing up in or living in a place is not necessarily “knowing” a place.
In earlier blogs I talked about the importance of research. Here is a perfect place for it. You don’t need to set a story in the place you grew up in (not that there’s anything wrong with that.) You can set a story anywhere you like, but, and I repeat, but, you must visit that place to make it authentic.
An example from my book, Deadly Provenance: “They drove on the Avenue de la Grande Armée, right up to and around the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs Elyseés to the Place de la Concorde with the tall obelisk at its center. Henri then turned left into a steady stream of traffic on the Rue de Rivoli, made a dizzying series of rights and lefts and wound up on a narrow alley way called Rue des Pretres-Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, which Maggie did not even attempt to pronounce. He pulled the Peugeot onto the sidewalk in front of a tiny building with glass front: Le Relais du Louvre, their hotel.”
I’ve never lived in Paris, but I have visited a number of times. Can you tell?
If you’re writing about a fictional town, you can have fictional streets and neighborhoods, fictional bars and fictional buildings. But if you’re writing about a real city, you need to make it authentic, by visiting. Maps on the Internet can help, but places change, restaurants close, old houses are torn down and replaced by condos. You must see it first-hand. This is especially important if you want to appeal to readers who actually live there. They will call you on your mistakes.
A dilemma I encountered when writing about Washington, D.C., during the Civil War, was how did it look back then? First of all it was called Washington City, an important note that would have bollixed up everything, had I gotten it wrong. Since I couldn’t transport myself back to Washington City in 1860 (darn), I lucked out when I chanced upon a book called “A Guide to Civil War Washington.” Thank you author, Stephen M. Forman! In this little gem were maps of the different areas in the District, including street names and famous attractions like Ford’s Theatre. Without this book, I would have had to research maps of the time and spent lots of hours at the Library of Congress, if I could get special permission. Whew.
One caveat about the benefit of actually living in the place you’re writing about is that you will know the “locals” better. Their habits, peculiarities, popular night spots, and idiosyncrasies of speech. But this is a post for another time.
For now, “write what you know” is not bad advice. “Know what you write” might be better.
Totally agree! When hubby and I moved to Colorado for a few years, we knew more about the state than most people we met because we had traveled the entire state while on vacation and studied everything we could about it before moving there. And same thing in San Diego – did all the tourist stuff and lived at the beach for years, submerging ourselves into the culture. Someone at my work once remarked that I looked more Californian then they did, and they were born and raised there. Ha!
Thanks, Indy!
I have never visited America but one of my characters spent a day in New York … Thanks to Google Earth, YouTube, Facebook and countless other resources, I planned her route meticulously and strolled with her along 5th Avenue. Where the book lacks credibility is in atmosphere. The only way to really sample a place is to visit it.
I wrote a short story based around Swede Johnson, a lesser known character from the Butch Cassidy era, but not one of the many historical books I consulted for research, mentioned the smells or the flies … yet the air in the town must have been full of wood smoke, the streets would have been littered with horse dung and … well there were the natural functions of the human bodies adding to the aroma.
Perhaps readers didn’t need to know that…
Philip, I think readers do need to know that. It adds a tremendous amount of atmosphere. Of course, some readers prefer plot-driven books like those by James Patterson. But many readers enjoy a richer story, filled with all kinds of sights, sounds and smells. I certainly do. Thanks for your comments.
I agree, as well. I’m writing about Renaissance Italy. I knew nothing about it. Now, three trips to Tuscany and 55 books later, I have a pretty good idea of what it might have been like. The trick is to impart a sense of time and place without inundating readers with too much detail.
Three trips to Tuscany! Lucky you. You make good points, Lance. Thanks.
Lynne,
How true. As soon as one gets deep into writing, which I have done over the past dozen years, you begin to chafe at all the maxims and rules taught in writing courses. If you have a good reason to write from an unconventional point of view, about an arcane topic or about a place where you’ve been transplanted, you should do it. It just means you have to do more research to make it plausible and real to the reader. After all, Iwoa WRiters Workshop rules, as taught in so many places today, are a good start, but I break thenm when I have to. Carry on! Peter
Very true, Peter. Thanks!
Agreed. The research tools available to us today allow us to write about a wide variety of things.
Doing research on time periods, locations, props that one is writing about seems basic to me. But i’m not a criminal, gang member, nutcase (i dont think), woman, member of a marginalized minority group, and i think all such people might figure in my crime writing. Psychological Empathy and leaps of imagination are pretty much all i can go on, or else use strategies that avoid issues which would betray my inexperience of their realities. It shakes my confidence to wonder if those are enough.
Interesting points, Howard. Thanks.