What You Know

I stumbled across an interesting quote this week:

The best thing to do is to write about what you know, and if you write about what you know you can always pull those nice little tidbits that hook people, that shows that you know about this world and can bring people into a world that they may not know nothing about.
—Ice Cube

Questionable grammar aside, what I like about this quote is that it doesn’t just tell you to “write what you know,” but tells you why you should do so: to “bring people in a world that they may not know nothing about.”

One of the most popular, and misleading, pieces of writing advice is to “write what you know.” How many budding authors have been discouraged because they feel they don’t “know” enough about what they’re writing about? I don’t have a background in science, how can I write science fiction? I don’t have a history degree, how can I write historical fiction?

The truth is, you know more than you think. You might not know how to ride side saddle like the heroine in an historical romance, or how to rig up an explosive device to take out a train in your thriller, but you know a whole lot of small details that are just as important. You know how a person will react to bad news, how a flower smells, how the fur of a cat who’s been dozing in the sun feels. You know how it feels to have your heart broken, to experience great joy or great sorrow. These are the things you need to know to hook your readers and draw them in. Little details that make your story real.

The rest is just research. Lots and lots of research in some cases. When I decided to have one of my characters sit down to a medieval feast, I did my research to find out how the table was laid out and what food would be on it. When I created a highly advanced alien race who were hiding out on a gas giant, I did research on gas giants so I could describe the colours and the way the gas swirled.

And don’t discount your imagination. That’s one of the reasons you’re a writer, isn’t it?

I write about imaginary countries, alien societies on other planets, dragons, wizards, the Napa Valley in 22002. I know these things. I know them better than anybody else possibly could, so it’s my duty to testify about them. I got my knowledge of them, as I got whatever knowledge I have of the hearts and minds of human beings, through imagination working on observation. Like any other novelist. All this rule needs is a good definition of “know.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin

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Wordage Report

Editing – 0 pages
Umm . . . the truth is, I don’t know where my head was this week, but I forgot all about getting any editing done.

Blood Ties – 1023 words
Better progress than last week, but still not as good as it could be.

Blog Posts – includes the post for my regular blog, but not the prompt story.
349 (regular blog)+ 836+ 345 = 1,530 words total

Weekly Prompt – 675 words

Total Words – 3,228

New Prompt
This week’s prompt is from Springhole (Creepypasta & Supernatural Horror Plot Generator)
One day in an abandoned factory, a woman and an old woman find an insane man after playing with a strange doll.

Goals From Last Week:
Well, I got more words in on Blood Ties than the week before, but still not as many as I’d like. I’m kind of afraid I’m almost at a part where I’m going to get stuck again. I need to do a scene with Howard to show how he’s doing, but he’s being coy and not talking to me.

I had a strange little prompt to work with last week and it produced a strange little story.

So, yeah. The absent minded author forgot all about editing last week. I don’t know what happened, I just never even gave it a passing thought.

Goals For This Week:
1. More new words on Blood Ties. I got over the minor hump of Jessica meeting her father and it turned out to be more long-winded than I counted on. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take for her to mount a mission to rescue Howard, but I have a few ideas I want to include.
2. New prompt story – it took me a while to settle on a prompt for this week so I hope I’m able to do it justice.
3. Find a new story (or two) to edit. Maybe pick a couple so I have one or two on standby. Lord knows I have a large pool to pick from.

And there’s what I’ll be up to this week. How about you?