Write What You Do Not Know…Sort Of.

Wait, say that again? You bet. Write what you do not know. That seems counterintuitive, and perhaps completely ridiculous. Many scholars and authors will in fact disagree with this thread, saying instead the opposite: write what you know. But I ask as an author, do we know about killing people? First hand? I hope not. Do we have to have a heart attack to know how that feels? Maybe. But again, I say hopefully not. Or something more benign....like in my novel, was I an expert on knowing how a working cheese farm operates? No, I wasn’t. I love cheese, like my character Kate. But I didn’t know the first thing about running a cheese farm. Still, I wanted to write about it. 

So instead I say, write what interests you.

So often as first-time authors, we can fall into the trap of writing a novel that turns into something semi-autobiographical. Because we are writing what we know, what has happened to us, because that’s easier to fill a blank page with. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t, the novel becomes mundane and boring, and no one wants to read it. Our personal lives are not always the stuff of stories. Which I, for one, am thankful for.

The point is, this book that you write is going to be with you for a long time. You will live, eat, breathe and probably even dream about it. So you’d better like it, or you’re never going to finish it, or even want to write it. The key is, if you write about something that interests you, other people will find it interesting too.

I wanted my novel Eclipsed Mountain to take place in Oregon in several places, because Oregon interested me. It’s a stunning state, and I fell in love with it on a trip I took there during The Great American Eclipse. I almost didn’t go; wildfires were raging throughout California and Oregon, and I had no idea if I would be evacuated once I got there, or if I would be driving into harm’s way. But I had been planning the trip for too long and just had to commit. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It turned out that with a few amendments to the itinerary, I was able to experience Oregon and all it’s blow-up-in-your-face volcanic beauty. 

I had always been interested in Oregon. From the tales of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, to learning how the Columbia River Gorge was made, and finally the cheese farms on the coast of Tillamook. I was interested in it all. And by the end of living there for a few weeks and gathering a wealth of research, I actually did end up writing what I knew. 

Never be afraid to write something you don’t know anything about; you can always learn it. And yes, if I were to write a novel based in Los Angeles, I’d very much be writing what I knew…but that doesn’t interest me. Yet. So go ahead, fellow authors, write what you do or do not know…as long as it interests you.