"Write What You Know." Are You Sure?

There is an old adage that says you should write what you know. I used to teach this to my kids when I taught 5th grade language arts, and I've told it to myself many times in the past. Heck I even wrote a blog post on here about it.

But this idea poses two different questions for me:

• Do I really have to only write about what I know?
• And what do I actually know?

Argument 1

So to the first question...only writing about what you know. I would pose this argument in response: If someone is creating a character who is a murderer, but they (meaning the author) aren't a murderer or haven't been murdered (obviously), do they really know what it means to be a murderer?

You could argue that maybe the author was friends with a murderer at some point in their lives, or had a murderer as a relative and therefore was exposed to their behavior. Ok. So for the sake of continuing the argument let's move on to a different genre altogether.

Now I'm going to write a novel about a fictional universe that I made up in my head, with a new life form known as Kozonauts, and it'll be a groovy narrative about their space adventures.

Do I really know about this fantasy world or its fictional characters? No, not really. They are a figment of my imagination, so how could I? So why can't we imagine other non-fantasy scenarios and fill in the gaps with research? Can we not be good storytellers by gaining knowledge first?

I argue that we can. We just have to take the time to learn so that our writing comes across as authentic.

Argument 2

Now to the second question...what do I actually know? Have you ever sat down and thought about what you actually know? I hadn't, until recently.

We think we know a lot about a certain subject, or a certain type of people, or a certain life scenario. These are usually the big things that stand out in our lives (a traumatic event, a field of study, a career path, a relationship). But what about all the little minutia that's hanging around and still makes up the fabric of our experiences?

For example:

• What about the interaction you had with the doctor with the bad bedside manner, and the frustration you felt about his lack of empathy?
• What about the time you lost your wallet and were frantic about your bank account, your credit cards, and your identity?
• What about the time you tried to follow a cool new recipe and what resulted was completely inedible, and you went out for pizza instead?

I think that as writers we forget that we actually know a lot. A whole lot! We just have forgotten the things that we know because they are covered by the bigger events of our memory.

So perhaps as writers we need to learn to reach further back into the depths of our memory and life experiences, thereby expanding our idea of what it is that we actually know. And whatever is left to figure out, well, that's what research is for.

What do you think? Do you subscribe to the notion of only "writing what you know" or do you find its boundaries to be fuzzy?