Comments on: How To Write What You Know

By: Ely's August Wrap Up - Tea & Titles

Ely's August Wrap Up - Tea & Titles — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 01:45:31 +0000

[…] Thomas Hawnt published a great article on Books by Women (amazing website, by the way) about how to write what you know. This is a topic […]

By: Lori Schafer

Lori Schafer — Thu, 18 Sep 2014 06:14:18 +0000

I think all writing is a combination of writing what you know with what you don’t. My second novel is a funny and romantic threesome story – a scenario about which I know nothing. But I made the main female character a commitment-challenged ice hockey player – about which I know a great deal! To me this is the fun of writing; placing characters you understand well into situations you yourself have never encountered, or conversely, creating strange and unusual characters and exploring how they behave in circumstances that are familiar to you. Ultimately I think you’ve cinched it with one phrase, Claire – you have to know people. If you know people, you can write them into all kinds of situations and know how they would behave, and that’s what makes for compelling and believable writing.

By: Ruth Geldard

Ruth Geldard — Fri, 22 Aug 2014 09:34:28 +0000

Great article-made me think…for writing to be convincingly authentic it must be grounded in what we know. But surely actual, proper Fiction, only results when truth lifts off, exploring other potentialities, through research or in the amalgamation of characters and events to create something new…isn’t this creativity?

By: Emmelie

Emmelie — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 07:19:06 +0000

This is a great post! I really like the advice about knowing people. I’m currently studying Psychology at school and I think it’s a great subject for writers because it’s teaching me a lot about people.

By: Vanessa

Vanessa — Thu, 15 May 2014 10:28:39 +0000

Advice more appropriate to the speculative fiction genre would be “write what you research.” If you’re going to be credible to sci-fi readers, for instance, you will want to know, to some extent, the science involved in your fiction. And I have seen, as an editor, many a fantasy author spend countless hours researching history, anthropology, linguistics, mythology–the study of people in their myriad forms. Not just what people are, but what people can be, and were.

By: Elaine Spires

Elaine Spires — Sun, 04 May 2014 09:19:26 +0000

I agree with so much of this article, especially studying and understanding how people react. During my time as a tour manager with a UK singles’ tour operator, I had the opportunity to do that. Consequently, I was able to write with conviction and produce believable characters in my novels Singles’ Holiday and Singles and Spice, to the extent that readers ask if they are actually people I met. The answer is ” No”; I used my knowledge and observation as the foundation but the actual building up of the plots into stories and books was done using my imagination. I am comfortable writing about what I know; my two other novels, What’s Eating Me and Sweet Lady touch on scenarios I am familiar with. Unfortunately, writing about what I knew got me fired from the tour operator who now use the title of my book (Singles’ Holiday) blazoned across their advertisements.

By: Rosanna Ley

Rosanna Ley — Tue, 01 Apr 2014 07:48:29 +0000

Don’t just write what you know, write what you want to explore.

By: Kat

Kat — Tue, 01 Apr 2014 04:55:02 +0000

Great article! There is a world of difference between “write what you know” and “narrate real life experiences”. It’s actually a pet peeve of mine when people try to guess who my characters “really” are, mostly because they are always wrong.

By: Gill Wyatt

Gill Wyatt — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 21:07:06 +0000

I really enjoyed this post because it made me think about how much of what I write comes from what I know. I find that when I’m writing, even the subjects that I know still need a lot of research and imagination. I’m amazed at the things that come back to my mind when I’m writing about a particular subject. A very thought provoking blog. Thank you.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 15:02:34 +0000

Heartily agree that ‘write what you know’ can’t be taken too literally. Imagination overrules it, every time! Research can cover places you haven’t been, or technical matters you haven’t studied. What you need to ‘know’ is human interaction, loneliness, love, hate, loss… And if you’ve never felt any of those, what are you doing writing?
Thanks for opening this discussion, and good luck in the future.