“Write what you know” does make sense for nonfiction. After all, you’re likely to be an expert on what you’re passionate about. But when you apply this to fiction writing the advice can turn into a liability. In college, before I learned to fictionalize enough, I once too accurately detailed a romance in a story I’d written. I deeply regret this, and not just because afterwards my ex-girlfriend, an artist, made a literal installation piece out of our breakup to set the record straight. A steel bed in a gallery with the words “You Lie” etched in it (proving who will win in an artist versus writer fight).
The problem of course was not that I lied—but that I hadn’t lied enough.
I shouldn’t have written what I knew. Fiction is by its definition lying. Good lying. And so in a novel you must invent. Write what you don’t know.
Of course, I’m not talking about stealing someone else’s story from Facebook, or appropriating a specific cultural voice not…
