Fiction Scribe

I was reading up on relationship stuff by Christina at Long Relationships, and I caught this post:

A Long Kiss Goodnight

Well, I got to thinking about my first kiss, which got me thinking about how much anxiety I felt about kissing before my first kiss, which got me thinking… Anyway, my chain of thinking finally led me to how much I felt awkward when writing about kissing.

Something that has always bothered me is trying to write about things I’d never experienced. Naturally I can’t ever experience holding a fireball in my bare hand, but realistic things like horseback riding and the smell of the ocean were hard for me to write about because of the fact I didn’t have any experiences to draw on.

Therein lies what I feel is one of the greatest challenge to writers. Especially fiction writers who sometimes create entire worlds from scratch.

I have always sought out all the experiences I could so I could have a large arena to draw from, but there are some things you just can’t do. That lack is where imagination comes in. Without imagination, the writer has very little.

“Write what you know” was one of the most annoying things for me to hear when I was younger. Because I was young, I automatically assumed I didn’t know enough to write about anything. Going to Toronto, Canada when I was twelve got me past that line of thinking, but I know writers who are around my age and older who still think they don’t know enough of anything to write what they know.

Newsflash: It’s not just writing what you know.

Writing fiction could never be entirely writing about what you know because people don’t want to know what you know so much as they just want to be taken away from what they know and into another world. The key is taking what you know, applying imagination, and creating something only you are expert on because it’s all from your head. (I’ll touch a bit on this when I write “The Importance of Backstory”.)

So when someone tells you to write what you know, don’t do what I used to do and glare at him or her a moment before turning away to roll your eyes. Take it for granted that everyone, even if you think you don’t, knows something as is proved in part by myself and all the other people who blog for 451Press. We all declare that we at least know a little something about a certain subject. My bet is that you do, too.

Combine one part knowledge, one part imagination, one part talent, and just a sprinkle of that which makes your writing yours, and you have yourself a story.