“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 your own. I’m asking you to trust your imagination and curiosity. And if you don’t know the difference between the two approaches, social media will help you know which is which when you’re caught doing the wrong one.
This week I handed in my new novel to my agent and I’m a little exhausted. But I want to share some of the details of the novel to prove my point. After writing two Brooklyn-set mysteries in twelve months I was ready to leave for someplace else, in my imagination at least, and somewhere quite darker in a new thriller.
I’m not a serial killer, but anger has been one of my great obsessions as a topic. I’m also fascinated by what motivates people to do terrible things and why they think they won’t get caught.
I’m not an influencer, but I am a woman online and I obsess over my appearance more than I ever did before. It doesn’t help that the bra I browsed is now following me endlessly around the internet until it haunts me in my dreams.
I don’t live in San Francisco, but I felt comfortable setting my story in the Bay Area because I’ve visited family there often enough, walked its streets, watched it change, and even thought about moving there. It’s also a city on the edge of the world, ripe with bizarre crime history: the perfect city for the story of a serial killer falling in love. In San Francisco that could happen. In New York City, it’s less likely. (Dating is just harder here.)
A curiosity about how life is lived is pretty much a prerequisite to being a writer. All subjects have a door you can walk through that has some connection with your own world.
You do know what people feel, and how they react to various situations. And that part of the novel, yes, that does come from the what you know adage.
YouTube is my number one stop for nurturing a new obsession, especially ones that will help my writing. For the new novel, I watched a scary quantity of lock-picking videos.
For this week’s prompt, go to YouTube and seek out something you’re interested in (gardening, guitar repair, possessed dolls) but not an expert on. Try turning that subject into a scene or character detail—either for something new or that you’re already working on.
See what doors it opens up.