Write What You Know

Some of you might have seen the news on social media, but in case you missed it, The Rabbit Room published one of my articles this week! You can read it here. I regularly enjoy Rabbit Room content so was honored that my work was accepted. And…if you remember a few weeks ago I said I hadn’t hit the “paid publication” milestone yet, now I can say I have! It has been an exciting couple of weeks for me, hitting three publishing milestones which had seemed out of reach for a long time. I’ll have to set some new goals!

In the middle of this excitement, I was reminded of the earliest writing advice I received. Write what you know. As a child aspiring to be an author, I acknowledged this was good advice, much like cooked broccoli is good food. Write what you know. If you write about your own life or things you’ve been able to observe, you’ll write more knowledgeably and more convincingly. That means don’t write about 18th century England, don’t write about dragons and princesses, don’t write about people getting married or having kids.

I don’t think that was quite how the advice was intended, but that’s how I interpreted it. None of my favorite books to read were remotely like my life as a child or teen. The settings were much more interesting and idealistic. The situations facing the main characters were always wildly unique (and seemed to end well even if temporarily harrowing). If I followed the advice ‘Write what you know,’ I could write more realistically, but what was the point? If what I knew wasn’t interesting in the first place, who would read it?

I think I am just now beginning to understand not just why you should write about what you know, but why people would want to read about what you know. Parts of my life have been exciting and unique. I’ve traveled on multiple continents, lived in another country for an extended time, and have some unique talents. But other aspects have been very ordinary. The ordinary of living in a city too big to count as a picturesque “small town” and too small to have all the exciting opportunities of the “big city.” I’ve started to see the ordinary beauty that surrounds each human life. God’s goodness is reflected in His image in each person, but also in the world He made for us. No one has to miss out on that beauty. Sometimes, it takes a gifted writer to shine light on that beauty for readers who may only be seeing the ordinary in their lives.

Do I still want to write about 18th century England, dragons and princesses, and happily married couples? For sure! I’ll meander far outside my field of familiarity and into the unexperienced or even fantastical. But will these stories be the ones that touch my readers the most? It’s possible. I certainly want to practice writing about things I’ve never experienced or even about things no one has experienced before. But I want to write as a gift to the reader. Sometimes to write what I know is what the reader needs the most.