Change It!
“Write what you know,” they say.
But what if you don’t know anything?
Let me rephrase. I mean, what if I don’t know anything dramatic or adventurous or truly extraordinary? I’m not a spy or a soldier or celebrity. My experiences, and hence the wealth of my knowledge, are quite mundane. That’s a good thing—no tragedies in my life, no dark family secrets upending my worldview. I live a privileged life in a safe country. For that I am truly grateful.
Then how can I write about betrayal or murder or war or longing? How can I write about angels and devils and the Seven Heavens that I created in my YA fantasy novel? I don’t know those things.
But I feel those things. I can feel for characters who were betrayed—or doing the betraying. I can feel the pain of death, the ache of longing, the joy of living. I can feel my protagonist Evangeline’s desire to stay close to her beloved father Lucifer and I can feel her heartbreak when she learns about the evil he’s done.
As writers, we need to be in our protagonist’s heads. We need to communicate to the reader how that character feels, not just what they know.
And we’re all experts at feeling.
So I say we revise the advice: Forget “write what you know.” Instead, “write what you feel.”