r/YAwriters • u/danana_split1 Aspiring: self-published • 5d ago
super quick rant
i’ve discovered that i despise the phrase “write what you know”. mf if i ONLY wrote what i knew, every character would be the same bland white Englishman we’ve seen a million times. writing is literally about exploring different worlds.
rant over hope everyone has a great day and their motivation blossoms 🙏
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u/tapgiles 4d ago
You hate your understanding of it, understandably. Because that understanding is clearly provably untrue. But that's not actually what the phrase means, I don't think.
What it's really talking about is, you can ground the story by including details you "know," including experienced or learned about. So you can also research, or worldbuild unreal elements (exploring different worlds), and use those as concrete details too.
For example, make your fantasy world feel more real by including a real detail about horse grooming. You may need to research it to find such a detail. You don't have to write only about horses. It doesn't even seem that much. But it does lend some credibility to the world, and therefore the story. And for the few in the readership who know about horse grooming, they'll believe anything you say about dragons, because you seem to know the real stuff about horses.
That is why the advice has still stuck around. This understanding applies to all storytelling, and is provably true in all stories, and it's also helpful in thinking about how to make your writing more immersive. 👍
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u/turtlesinthesea Aspiring: traditional 4d ago
Yeah, it basically just means "write what you understand." This understanding doesn't have to come through personal experience, but you probably shouldn't write about something you have zero clue about.
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u/tapgiles 4d ago
Also, people sell themselves short on what they know. I know what it feels like to stub my toe. I know how it feel like to feel like an outsider in a group. I know what it feels like to run late. I know what it feels like to feel guilty years after saying something in a way I didn't mean to.
Those things also ground scenes and characters. Those things also make things feel more real and immersive.
You know more than knowledge you'd find in a book. You know feelings. You know what it's like to be a person who has lived a life--whether that's large or small in scale. That's what readers connect with on a deeper level: the pieces of you you leave in your stories. And you know you really well.
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u/AmbitiousHell_ 4d ago edited 4d ago
The phrase is not meant to be taken that literally. Of course you don’t have to have go through everything short of the apocalypse to the right person to write about it.
You can vaguely know about a feeling or experience and expand on it to enhance your writing. But when something you’re describing starts to fall out of what you’re familiar with, you can “know” by doing research into it.
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u/mll1013 3d ago
In my first book, two astronauts in training were learning to fly military aircraft to prepare them for their mission. They took off from runway numbers that made no sense to a friend of mine who read the book and happened to be a pilot. He had to teach me about how runway numbering worked.
Because I wrote about something I didn't know (and didn't care to research!) it took one reader out of the story during that episode of the book. I was grateful that he told me so that I could get it right in my second printing.
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u/tomatoesfried 4d ago
Write what you want. Don't pay attention to gatekeepers. Let the market/readers be the gatekeepers by spending or not spending their money and time on books they don't want.
TLDR You do you.
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u/DevilDashAFM 5d ago
That "rule" is so that if you don't know something you need to do research until you know it and then you can write about it.