Write what you know

Write what you know. I heard that all the time when I started writing. I even said it a few times when I taught writing.

I have been thinking about this phrase a lot recently. What does it really mean? Does it mean I should only write stories about white females? I hope not. Looking through my works in progress, almost none of my characters are female. Some aren’t even human.

Does it mean I should limit myself to American themes and styles? Maybe. Or maybe I should just be a little more considerate when writing characters from a different background than my own. I have written several pieces in an imitation of Japanese style. To me, my Japanese inspired stories are a tribute to a culture and style that I find fascinating. Something I wanted to try and capture. To others, those pieces might seem like appropriation. That was not my intention at all, but because I am a white American is that just how the world will see it? I want to say these pieces are harmless, but I am not Japanese. I do not claim to be an expert on Japanese literature or culture, but I do my research and try to recognize the places my ignorance or bias show through. Is that enough?

In high school, I wrote a story about a young man in West Texas who cross-dressed. He was the star of the football team but liked to paint his nails and wear prom gowns. His secret came out, and in the end, he committed suicide. I had just finished reading The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry, and I was inspired by the tragic young protagonist. I was also learning about homosexuality and other alternative lifestyle choices from a new group of friends. And, like many teenagers, I was struggling with depression. This story brought all of these pieces of my life together. Looking back, I think I poured more of my soul into that story than anything else I have written since. I was young. I didn’t know how to write without exposing myself completely.

They published it in the Lit Mag that semester. I was so proud of myself. I had been writing since I was little, but this was the first time my work had been approved by my peers. I decided then that I wanted to be a writer.

My first writing workshop in college, I volunteered to go first. I made some edits to this story. After all, it had been a few years. I had grown. I understood more about writing and myself. But it was still the same story.

I got ripped apart by one of my classmates. He was gay. He was my friend. And he had a point. My character was a hodgepodge of all the things straight high schoolers believe about homosexuality. Just because the character liked to wear dresses, it didn’t mean he was gay. I didn’t understand my character or the world he was supposed to represent. I didn’t know what I was writing.

I still don’t believe that write what you know means you should only write about people like yourself. That would make for a lot of really boring stories. However, there are certain things you can’t write about unless you experience them or really do your research. If I were to rewrite that story today, I would make sure I knew as much as I could about the thoughts, emotions, and experiences of young gay men. It wouldn’t be first-hand information, but I could still know enough to write about it with authority.

Because I do believe there is something that we all know well enough to write. We all know how to be human. We just might have to dig a little deeper to know about a human that is different from us. But isn’t that what writing is all about? Helping us see the world through different eyes. Understand someone else’s story. I know what love feels like. I know about pain, fear, confusion, hope, and joy. My experience might be slightly different than the situation my characters find themselves in, but in the end, I am just a human writing about being human.

So write what you know, but don’t be afraid if you don’t know it yet. You can’t wait for someone else to tell your stories for you. Just do your research. And don’t stop writing.

Coincidence

“There’s no such thing as coincidence.” I think it was Sherlock Holmes that said that, but I could be wrong. Regardless, I like mysteries, crime shows, and the like, and most of them an idea like this one at one point or another. To be fair, when you are talking about murder, there might not be such a thing as coincidence. But in real life, I feel like coincidences are everywhere!

You just read a book and next thing you know it comes up in casual conversation with a friend. A news article mentions an economic theory you were just studying. Little moments like this that make you feel like everything is connected. For the paranoid sort, maybe it is proof you are in the Matrix. For the rest of us, it is just those little things that make us go “huh, what a small world.” I love these moments. They can be so bizarre and random yet so poignant at the same time. For me, they often touch on unspoken fears or feelings that I haven’t been able to fully articulate yet. They can be the moments that make me think about the larger things at work that my tiny human brain can’t comprehend. Sometimes they are just funny or interesting. The point is they happen all the time.

But when they happen in literature… For some reason, while I am all for coincidences in my real life, I get irked when they happen in literature or other media. It seems lazy or contrived. I find myself disenchanted or worse, angry at the writer.

Why? Why am I so willing to accept coincidence in my real life but not in my fiction? Not that there is an easy answer, but I think part of it is how Americans are taught to appreciate stories. Everything is so linear for us. We don’t like cliff hangers or loopholes. We like neat, tight, cause and effect plots. The random monkey wrench of fate is too much for us. To some extent we will accept coincidence in our stories, how else would anything ever happen, but when the plot hinges on such a coincidence, we feel cheated. This might have something to do with our cultural need to control destiny. I have never encountered a culture so obsessed with the idea of freedom and free will. But that is a blog for another occasion.

Other cultures don’t seem to have this same hang-up. I have talked before about how Japanese literature could sometimes drive me nuts with this sort of thing. It seems others aren’t as bothered by coincidence or the strange workings of fate. Many of the stories I have read or watched from other cultures are filled with these coincidences. Hell, even Shakespeare has more people in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time than I would ever accept from a contemporary American story. No one seems to mind.

Is it just me?  

Nonfiction

When we talk about reading, it seems we almost always mean fiction. At least, I do. I talk about all the books I have or all the ones I have read – almost all fiction. This seems to be the default genre when people talk about reading, writing, or anything to do with books.

Sometimes, I think we forget that there is a whole lot more out there when it comes to the written word. I know I am totally guilty of passing over biographies, essays, journalism, and other nonfiction without a second thought. The thing is, though, when I do pick up a well-written piece of nonfiction, it acts on my soul the same way that a novel or short story does. So why don’t I see it as an equal?

Partly, I think it is training. The nonfiction I read in school was abysmal. Textbooks are not written to be enjoyed. Their writers probably don’t even enjoy them. Other than that, it was Newsweek for Kids or similar magazines. History, Math, and Science classes didn’t emphasize reading for pleasure. It was more just get the information and get on with it. Not to say my teachers didn’t want to share a killer biography about their favorite mathematician or a page-turner about some important historical event, but with so much to cram into our distracted brains, there wasn’t much time for extra reading.

That was one aspect of the Common Core Curriculum that intrigued me when I was studying for my Masters in Education. Common Core encouraged critical reading in subjects other than English. The program had a whole host of problems, to be sure, but that one stuck with me.

Now that I am an adult and get to pick what I read, I am still drawn to fiction. However, I have come to appreciate a well-written piece of nonfiction. The key word there is well-written. Just like a bad novel, a bad historical account can be downright painful to read. But a well-written piece of nonfiction – be it a cookbook, academic thesis, travel adventure, whatever – has the potential to be just as life changing as any classic literary work. These gems can be hard to find, but so is a good novel, if you think about it.

I guess what I am trying to say is that we shouldn’t think of nonfiction as a dirty word. It isn’t inherently dry or boring. It isn’t aiming to suck the fun out of reading. It’s not all written like a textbook. It just depends on the individual book. So maybe next time you visit your local library or bookstore, wander through the nonfiction section. See if anything catches your eye. You might be surprised.