Ever since I began writing in the early 80’s, I’ve heard the advice to “write what you know”. After 40 years, I still don’t know how I feel about that.
At that time in my life, I knew a few things. But not a lot. I had some experience in the health care field and was just starting out in the computer field. I could’ve written about how to take a temperature on a dementia patient or how to write the Basic code to print out “Hello World” but little else.
Or I could’ve written about how to change the water pump on a car in the middle of a snowstorm on a side street in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. Or how to put up mirror tiles on a living room wall to make the space feel larger. Yeah, that was a thing then.
So, OK, I did know a few more things than I originally said. But I didn’t want to write about them. In fact, some of them I would just rather forget. The water pump ordeal wasn’t a fond memory, at all.
Back to the advice to write what you know. The first task is to understand what it is that you do know. Oh, and how much do you need to know before you can write about it? I knew enough to figure out how to put on that water pump, but I certainly was not a mechanic. I was pretty good at putting plaster casts on fractured limbs, but couldn’t tell you about the healing mechanism of a broken bone.
And who wants to read something written by someone with incomplete knowledge? I had a couple of flying lessons by then so I could’ve written about what it’s like being a student pilot, flying out of a cornfield with an instructor who made more money crop dusting than giving flight lessons.
And how long do I need to know something before I write about it? Years? Months? Days? Right after my second flight lesson, I could’ve written about taking off in a crosswind by watching the direction and intensity that the wind was blowing the tassels on the corn.
Now if I take all of this criteria and use it to define “what I know” back then, I come up with a fairly large list of things. A surprising lot of things.
While I dabbled in several genre, my writing focused on mystery and horror. The last twenty years, science fiction has occupied my word processor. And here is where I do a lot of writing about things I don’t know.
Quantum mechanics, astrophysics and cosmology have fascinated me, but I’ve not had formal training in any of those fields. Thankfully, there are many authors and researchers who write about these topics so the layman can understand.
The science fiction book that I am currently writing is based on all of those disciplines, including the multiverse and parallel world theories. To be truthful then, I have to admit that I’ve been spending time writing about what I don’t know.
And it’s been an exciting experience!
I’ve done a lot of research into topics that I could barely pronounce. Theories about what the universe really is, how it came to be and where it is going. I think of it as the Big Picture.
Then I add the unlikely arrival and evolution of human beings into this vast cosmos. What are we doing here and where are we going? And how do we relate to the Big Picture?
OK, now there is a helluva lot that I don’t know about which I’m writing. And it continues to be a blast!
I think that the advice that I like is to “write about what you want to know”.
Maybe one day, I’ll write about changing that water pump. But I may have to embellish it a bit by adding an alien abduction before I get the radiator hose connected to the pump.
That’s something I definitely I know nothing about. 🙂