This is a good reframing of the old advice. Still, I’d take it a step further and posit that when you “write what you know” as is described here (which is the only way to write anything impactful to anyone, including yourself), you aren’t engaging in truth-telling so much as truth-uncovering.
This is a good reframing of the old advice. Still, I’d take it a step further and posit that when you “write what you know” as is described here (which is the only way to write anything impactful to anyone, including yourself), you aren’t engaging in truth-telling so much as truth-uncovering.
I wrote a novel directly based on my experience with psychosis, which sounds like my own misunderstanding of “write what you know,” but was actually my attempt to convey the subjective truth of my experiences to someone who lacked and/or shared similar experiences.
The best part is that “what I knew” changed as I wrote.
Writing “what you know,” in any interpretation of the phrase, is limiting, because “knowing” is the endpoint of learning and discovery.
Write like a child picking apart a music box—with or without the intention of ever putting it back together. Maybe the first two or three drafts are the disassembly, and the subsequent drafts are the reassembly.
I’d argue that you (think you) know a bit about what a music box contains, but in the act you’ll discover what it’s truly made of.
I also appreciate this one from the essay: write to make yourself squirm. That one’s given me some of my best stuff.
This is a good reframing of the old advice. Still, I’d take it a step further and posit that when you “write what you know” as is described here (which is the only way to write anything impactful to anyone, including yourself), you aren’t engaging in truth-telling so much as truth-uncovering.
I wrote a novel directly based on my experience with psychosis, which sounds like my own misunderstanding of “write what you know,” but was actually my attempt to convey the subjective truth of my experiences to someone who lacked and/or shared similar experiences.
The best part is that “what I knew” changed as I wrote.
Writing “what you know,” in any interpretation of the phrase, is limiting, because “knowing” is the endpoint of learning and discovery.
Write like a child picking apart a music box—with or without the intention of ever putting it back together. Maybe the first two or three drafts are the disassembly, and the subsequent drafts are the reassembly.
I’d argue that you (think you) know a bit about what a music box contains, but in the act you’ll discover what it’s truly made of.
I also appreciate this one from the essay: write to make yourself squirm. That one’s given me some of my best stuff.
Thanks, Thaddeus, this was great.