Writing what You Know

It's been said that one should write what they know.  But if we only write what we know, how do we write anything but blogs, memoirs, and biographies?  How do we write that story that's trying to battle its way out of our soul and onto the page?

The easy answer, which may not be so easy in execution, is know more.  You may think, well, I know my life.  I can write about me.  But even that can get complicated.  That's where I started with the novel I'm still working on close to two years later.  About two years ago, I pondered the books I had recently read, the sub-par, poorly written books I had just read and thought, "I can do better than that.  What do I know?  I know what it is to be an overweight Mormon woman living in the Logan area who is dealing with loss.  How about I write about that?"  But I didn't want to write about me.  I wanted to write about some other overweight Mormon woman living in Logan dealing with loss.

So how could I write about this other woman?  I had to plan.  I had to decide who she was apart from me.  If I were to try to make her entirely me, I'd have such a hard time pulling us apart that the character would get mushy.  I'd assume everyone understood what I was writing because I understood.  I had to sit and figure out who she was, what her voice sounded like (if not mine then whose?)  I had to plan her relationships, her friendships, her past, her present, a bit about her future.  I had to come up with a story and research the pieces of that story I didn't know from memory.  I had to know more than just what it is to be me.  I had to know what it is to be her.  But what it is to be me informs my writing of what it is to be her.  And like I said, two years later, I'm still working out the kinks, figuring out what works and what doesn't about what I've written, so I can write her story believably and in an interesting way.

I could have put her in a fantasy or sci fi or western or any other genre.  I could have started with what I knew about fairy tales.  But I have tried my hand at much of that, and it has come out sounding cliched.  If you can start with what you know in one of these genres without becoming yet another in a long line of poor writers, good for you.  But I tried, and it didn't work for me. My me-as-a-fantasy-character stories fell flat because they had no meaning, no depth.  Maybe I'll go back one day.  But for now, it suits me to stay in the present with someone enough like me that I know her but not so much like me that knowing her, you understand my life.

Once I'm done knowing her story, I can  use that as a jumping off point to know more about other people, other lives.  Meanwhile, my knowledge base is growing.  As I research and explore more areas, I can write about more.  And all of this helps me become a better writer.