Write What You Know

I am a firm believer in write what you know, a lot of people I talk to (so basically like two per month) say that they don’t know what to write about because honestly what do they know?

They know a lot actually, I write comedy because that’s what I know, I know about embarrassing encounters with boys, and going into a tattoo shop and getting M&Ms from the machine there on a dare, I know about nerdiness, I know about writing.

Hence my books are normally about nerds who write, there’s a different plot every time, and the characters are normally different in some ways, but you can still spot a pattern.

Another way to write what you know is to do research, if you’re going to write a fantasy REASEARCH IT! And I don’t mean boring stuff, I mean just get some books from the library on fantasy that are some of the best and read them, that way you can spot what’s believable and what’s not.

What’ll happen if you don’t do your research you ask? Easy, you’ll have a book like Stephanie Meyer’s YUCK!

Now there’s another kind of research that most writer’s detest (because we’re a lazy bunch), it’s looking up technical terms, and actually contacting the police department or science lab and seeing if it would be a realistic thing or not. Some of writers that hate this kind of research are John Grishman, Stephen King……and me.

Feel free to skip this kind of research.

On the subject of great writers let me add a side note that both John Grishman and Stephen King write what they know, John Grishman was a lawyer so now all his books have to do with a lawyer, or a court case, Stephen King on the other hand grew up in a small town in Maine and had a tight group of friends when he was eleven, so he writes about Maine, and plucky boys that are always getting into trouble (It, Stand by Me, Under the Dome), also most of his main adult characters are in fact writers.

Now in my experience here’s what happens when you don’t write what you know and you write things that you didn’t even research and know nothing about.

Twilight (‘Nuff said). I think this GIF below explains my feelings toward people who like the books.

Really bad writing that nobody can believe, because it’s not realistic, I know that doesn’t sound like a big thing, but believe me it’s bad.