What Do You Know?

with Sharon Burke

One of the first pieces of advice beginning writers receive is to write what they know.  At first glance, this idea sounds incredibly restrictive so I thought I’d explore it a little.

Author Nathan Englander believes “write what you know” is excellent advice, but sadly is often misunderstood. He argues it applies to emotions, not events. This makes sense to me as an aspiring romance author.  The characters in romantic novels experience wide ranging emotions with differing intensities: love, anger, jealousy, loss, happiness, fear, disgust. If you know what it feels like to be scared, then it should be easier to create plausible fear in your characters.

Marg Gilks an author of short stories and poetry argues “write what you know” applies to everything you feel, not just to emotions. “You know what your senses tell you, and other people share those sensations”.  I believe the best romantic novelists have an uncanny ability to take their readers on an emotional, highly sensory journey.  The romantic novels I enjoy the most capture my senses. I see and feel the sunlight and rain, hear the sounds of wind, running water and the tone of words spoken. I feel uncertainty, love, hope and turmoil just as the heroine and hero do.  I think this intensity of reader vicarious sensory experience makes romantic novels unique and special. The reader has the chance to develop a depth of empathy and connectedness that other genres struggle to match.

Fiction writers must be prepared to go beyond what they know. Valerie Parv stresses the importance of knowing your characters well and understanding their motivations. “You can’t write about real people unless you know them and understand why they do what they do.” She suggests many strategies to help with this including developing wide ranging interests, exploring both sides of a question and reading popular psychology books. I find popular psychology books tremendously helpful for “fleshing out” characters, and for matching their motivations and actions.

Finally, fiction writing by its very nature demands authors venture into the unknown.  The nybookeditors.com site states “We can’t limit ourselves to what we know. Instead, be open to what you want to know, what your characters know, and the great body of experiences some other writer before you has known.” I find this statement challenging, but tremendously exciting. Reading widely, and reflecting on ways in which romantic novels are constructed helps me to better understand the challenge of what I am attempting to do.

So where does that leave us?  I think we as romantic novelists utilise our sensory experiences and emotions within our writing. We should never be afraid to let our imaginations lead us on our writing journey. This is where some of the most fascinating parts of our profession lie. 

What do you think?  What does 'write what you know' mean to you?

I love to love…relationships as so important.

I love to laugh…the comedy in everyday life never ceases to amaze me.

I love to learn…life has so much to offer.

Writing What You Know

with guest blogger Nicole Hurley-Moore

Ever had your heart broken or done something so embarrassing you wished that the ground would open up and swallow you whole? Have you been in love or ridiculed or a bit naughty? What about facing a fear, finally achieving something you’ve worked hard towards or falling for the wrong guy... twice? If the answer is ‘yes’ to one or more of these questions (or all of them in my case but we just won’t go there) – use it in your writing.

We’ve all been told to write what you know and when I first started writing I thought I knew what that meant; but I was wrong. I thought it was all about the research, places, time period and facts. If I had the facts, the plot and the characters developing throughout the story and jumping through all their particular hoops, then everything was perfect – wasn’t it? And the short answer was – no, it wasn’t because the essence was missing. My hero and heroine were flat because I just wasn’t feeling it and that was the problem.

Write what you know means so much more. Yes, we need the research and the facts but you also have to incorporate – well, you. Sure, we have shared experiences like falling in love, facing grief or trying to step up during a crisis. But the way you deal or feel about them is unique to you. What I mean is not everyone reacts the same way. For example at a funeral some people are shattered, others silent and unbending, some laugh nervously while another may make lame jokes at inappropriate times. This doesn’t mean they aren’t grieving, they’re just handling it in their own way (that is all except for Uncle Bob who’s just a jerk).

You have to do more than just write the story, you have to feel it. However it’s not just having empathy for your characters; it’s sharing with them your authentic feelings. Is this wrapped up in ‘your voice’? Um... I guess it kind of is.

So when writing a scene, remember to draw on a similar situation or feeling that you’ve experienced. Maybe none of us have ever fought a duel at dawn or faced down an enemy with sword in hand, but at one time or another we’ve been scared, desperate, forced into something we didn’t want to do or sacrificed something for another person (or maybe even taken the odd fencing lesson).

Mix the experience, physical reaction and the research and your story instantly gains depth.

We create and manipulate our characters to tell the story from our heart so don’t sell it short. We want our readers to connect with our characters but firstly we must connect with them ourselves. Remember how it feels to be crazy in love, jealous, betrayed, or how you felt when you kissed for the first time, and then give your characters that little bit of yourself.
Nicóle x

Image courtesy of polyvore.com

Tell us how you've used 'what you know' in your writing or how you imagine the writer used what they know in a book and you will go into a draw to win a signed copy of McKellan's Run by Nicole Hurley-Moore!!!

Love to Love – My family and my obsession with antique jewellery

Love to Laugh – At my family’s odd sense of humour and their quest to get me to laugh at the worst possible time.

image courtesy of sppiblog.org

Love to Learn – Anything I can on medieval history.












McKellan's Run available now! Published by Allen and Unwin.

McKellan’s Run – Sometimes you have to give love a second chance...

Visit Nicole's website for more at:  www.nicolehurley-moore.com.

Write What You Know

by Dee Scully

“Write what you know.”  I must have heard this statement a hundred times over the years at writers conventions and in ‘how to write’ books.  I assumed I understood the meaning of it; I have a Bachelor of Health Science and studied medieval art history, so I should write about science or history or historical science. 

The Carta Marina by Olaus Magnus (1490-1557)
source: Wikipedia

(Don’t laugh!  I’ve actually amalgamated the two into a medieval medical romance, Porphyria’s Lover, with spectacular results!)   While writing ‘what I know’ of science and history has been enlightening and even quite fun, I’ve recently come to realize that there is more to the story (or statement) than meets the eye.

“Write what you know,” is more than a sweeping coverage of career choice.  When I dug deeper I realized it’s also about what I know about myself.  Have you ever found yourself writing a flat character because you just can’t get into his/her headspace? 

Narcissus by Caravaggio (1594-1596)

source: Wikipedia

I have.  I struggled for months to make the heroine of my latest medieval romance multi-dimensional but she always fell flat until late one night after yet another scrapped revision, I decided to apply a bit of my ‘history’ to her…just for fun, because nothing else seemed to be working.  I applied my feelings to her character.  How would I feel if I was her, better yet—how did I feel when a similar event happened to me?  I discovered particular angles of this character that I hadn’t before considered.  My character and my story blossomed with the added depth created from what I knew about myself!  It made me understand my fictional character (and my real self) in new and enlightening ways. 

How about you?  How have you applied what you know about yourself to your writing?   How has this affected your writing for the good or the bad?

Love to love, Love to laugh, Love to learn!

I love loving.  Period.  Full stop.  It’s why I’m a romance writer.

I love laughing at myself.  It reminds me that life doesn’t have to be so serious.

I love learning how to shape multi-dimensional characters! Orson Scott Card in the Writer’s Digest series Elements of Fiction: Characters & Viewpoints makes learning about character shaping easy.

Until later…happy writing!

D