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On writerly aphorisms
Mar. 1st, 2014 11:50 am"Write what you know" doesn't mean you can't write well about things you haven't personally experienced. That's ridiculous, and all of fiction (let alone all of science-fiction and fantasy) puts the lie to it; research, imagination, and empathy can take you where you want to go. Work at it hard enough, and there's not much out there you can't write well.
No, it's "write what you know" because you are the only one who knows it. No-one else has had precisely your experiences and your life, no-one else is in the position to realize the things about it that you are. No-one else has exactly your perspective on the human condition, so no-one else can report back on what you see from there. It might seem too pedestrian to you to be interesting, but for someone else it'll be a foreign country, a distant time, a worldview upside-down from their own.
Write what you know because no-one else can.
--R
Reading: Santa Olivia, Jacqueline Carey.
No, it's "write what you know" because you are the only one who knows it. No-one else has had precisely your experiences and your life, no-one else is in the position to realize the things about it that you are. No-one else has exactly your perspective on the human condition, so no-one else can report back on what you see from there. It might seem too pedestrian to you to be interesting, but for someone else it'll be a foreign country, a distant time, a worldview upside-down from their own.
Write what you know because no-one else can.
--R
Reading: Santa Olivia, Jacqueline Carey.
