For if you write bullshit, bullshit will be written about you. I am completely and genuinely, without any reservations, in favor of what this marvel of writing advice tries to communicate to the budding author.
THE READER: A CURIOUS SPECIMEN
As a group of people wasting their time on your story because you chose a profession that hinges on owing people entertainment in exchange for money, your readers are about as ferocious in their criticism as hungry cannibals come. They do not forgive, and they start not forgiving with the very first line. However, readers are human, too. So while many of them possess the ability to walk away from having just finished a book they'd love to round up every copy of so they can throw it into an active vulcano for the good of humanity, others will feel that you have failed and betrayed them on a personal level.
You know this, because you are one of them. You are a reader. As such, you, too, are walking the line between Ghandi and Murder Bee. Decide your proximity to either, then ask yourself the question: Is the content of a book a person wrote evidence enough to call them an asshole? You don't know them. You don't know what they look like. You know their name if you can be arsed to remember it. And still, if you hate the book, you hate the author, and you hate them because they dared to create something that offended you.
Do you want to be that author? No? Then don't kid your kidders. Once you break your readers' suspension of disbelief, you can't repair it. Your story will be deader than a dodo, and that's that.
Wait. No... this is a rant about that advice. But I'm not ranting. I'm cheerleading. Why am I cheerleading? Haha, don't worry. I'm getting to that. Now.
FINALLY, THE RANT UNFOLDS
“Write what you know” is one of the most lazy-ass ways to tell someone not to write bull. It's like an author flat-out telling the core of what their book is about. As advices go, you want to be curt and to the point, and it's not helping. It's like “Write What You Know” is the title of a real cool archive full of information what “Write what you know” actually means, and by simply saying or writing it the archive will be transferred from one brain to the other. Someone says, “Write what you know, kids!” and everyone understands, everyone knows. Except everyone doesn't.
People with dreams can be really, really discouraged when they hear or read it for the first time and take it at face value. They want to write about wonderous things, they have great ideas, they have a story to tell, but the problem is, their knowledge about the subject matter is lacking, and the movie of it that keeps playing in their heads sadly doesn't come equipped with subtitles. To them, it sounds like a limit. A restriction. It sounds like, “You can't.”
This is not what “Write what you know” means.
For an established author – or someone with the desire to be one in the near future – it is imperative to have a style of writing a publisher wants to sell. They have agreed to deliver a product, no surprises. There are terms to being a professional writer. But before that, before you get anywhere near professional, let alone renowned enough to be able to somewhat live on it, you will have to do this:
Go ahead and fail. A lot.
For tickles, let's have us an analogy: At one point in your life you have been born. And at one point later in your life, there was a little kitten that expertly shat into a box while you were still hatching eggs inside a diaper. It is a long way from diaper to plastic potty, and then from plastic potty to toilet. Maybe you thought you'd never be able to do it. But you did, and if you remember it or not, these are achievements your parents will have regarded with pride. My mother, she still has the picture of my brother wearing his (empty; I feel like I have to clarify this) potty as a hat. Your constant struggle with the potty until you finalized a working strategy was cute. You were acquiring a new skill. What a smart little bugger.
And then it stopped being cute. And I wonder, when did we, conquerors of the crapper, of shoe laces and of cutlery, become people who'll let themselves be defeated by picking up the pen? When has the frustration of failure become so powerful that we'll rather give up than reap the benefits only years of falling from the horse and getting back up can award?
It's because we are taught that failure is always a bad thing, that mistakes are always a bad thing, that the risks of trying something new and exciting aren't worth it. But failure and mistakes, as far as learning a new skill goes, are an integral part of success. If you suck once, you have achieved nothing. If you suck twice, chances are you suck a little less than before. And you keep going, you keep sucking, you keep failing, you keep making mistakes – and that's what will teach you to not suck, to not fail, to not make too many mistakes. But only if you can accept that failure is a good thing. Mistakes are a good thing. And the best thing of all is to write what you don't know.
Oh boy. Turned it right on the head, didn't I?
Do you ever think about what you know, exactly? Do you ever wonder what you know best? Was the answer: yourself? There is a problem with writing only about yourself. Everything you write will be the same, every character you create will sound the same. You will achieve nothing.
“Write what you know.”
Now consider this means that, if you want to write about something you don't know, you should get to know it. It's a learning process inside of a learning process. Again, you will write crap. And again, this is necessary for you to get the hang of this new thing. You will get better at it while you progress on your journey to knowledge.
“Oh dang, how am I gonna get that knowledge, though?” If that thought crossed your mind, I will kindly let you in on the secret that you are reading this very rant online. Knowledge is one Google search away. We live in the age of the internet, and we will be living here until someone comes up with something better. Today, if you want to write about something, you can look it up online. You start with Google, advance to Wikipedia, download some e-books from Amazon (or wherever). Yes, it's still easier not to do research. When has writing ever been about easy?
There is a lot more to this, but you get the picture. Here is what I am going to tell you as an advice that I had to give to myself and that has worked out well for me in the past:
“Write what you know. If you don't know what that is about, get to know it. Don't be lazy, learn, work, make a schedule, prod yourself. Keep on it. Start the advice over.”
Dream. Play. Stay strong.
Maria
