Writing About Writing: Write What You Know?
Starting today, I’ll be posting from time to time–once a week, hopefully–my own thoughts on writing, plus writing prompts and exercises. As with pretty much everything else you’ve read, or will read, here, this isn’t something on which I’m an expert. Hopefully you’ll find something useful regardless. Here goes nothing…
If you write, or you’ve even thought all that much about writing, someone’s probably told you the old writer’s mantra: “Write what you know.” Sometimes, especially if you’re staring at a blank page or screen for minutes, hours, or days on end, this can be useful advice. What you know and the things with which you’re comfortable can be a touchstone as much in writing as they are in life.
They can be limiting at the same time. Speaking for myself, I find a lot of my day-to-day life to be… shall we say, dull? I’ll never be mistaken for Jackie Wilson (”Mr. Excitement”), that’s for damn sure. Sooner or later, if you’re writing only about the things you know, you settle into a sameness in your writing.
The real trick lies in writing what you don’t know. That’s true, I think, whether you’re writing about, say, some new subject about which you’re interested, or even writing about yourself. It’s when you start getting into uncharted territory that things get interesting. Of course, if you can ground the strange in the familiar, or find the familiar in the strange, you’re at least one step ahead of the game.
It’s no accident that “essay”–besides being the short writing form with which we’re all familiar–is also defined variously as proposing, testing, or trying something. In that spirit, get the thoughts out on paper. Propose something rash, try something silly, and write (at least at times) with no thought as to where you’re going or how you’re getting there.
Your first assignment, which I’ll be taking up next week: Write something terrible.
Tags: essays, writing, writing technique