Writing What You Sort of Know
There's an adage all writers have heard at one time or another: Write what you know. If you don't want to write a memoir, then writing what you know limits you, right? I've had writers tell me that.
But there's more to that adage.
I have been emailed about five times in the last six months by college or high school students writing papers on me--or rather my books. Part of their assignments--and these students have been from across the U.S., so it's not all for one class--has been to write the author of the book they chose and ask him or her some questions, like why did you choose to write the book. Two students of the five or so picked Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven, a Red Dress Ink title. My sales for it were very good, and my editor told me that two weeks ago, with the comment, "That book proves writers don't have to write frothy, light books for chick lit readers to embrace it." Why did she say that? The main character has breast cancer. Her best friend is a gay man who has a horrific story of the events that occurred when he was "outed" in college. One of the people who wrote me about this book asked if I had breast cancer.
As I was writing the "back story," if you will, to this student, of the book's journey out of me and into my computer, I realized that in some ways, I wrote what I knew. I have close male friends with AIDS, men I adore. I had breast surgery for suspected cancer three years ago, two of my best friends had the disease. I nearly died from Crohn's disease 13 years ago--and my ex threatened to take my child from me by telling me he was considering subpoenaing my medical records as I lay dying. The character, Lily, in High Heels is a mother. As I wrote this student last week or so, I realized . . . wait . . . you don't write what you know. Not exactly. You write what you can empathically create.
According to Webster, this is the definition of empathy:
1 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it.
2 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this.
The capacity for this. THAT'S the mark of a true writer. That's what professors meant all those years ago when saying write what you know.
When I wrote Invisible Girl, I channeled six years or so of working in the Vietnamese refugee community as a volunteer English teacher, hearing their stories of life in the Philippine camps prior to gaining entrace here, their experiences as boat people, their lives in Vietnam. I could understand a mother's anguish, a soldier's disgust. I have that capacity. I cared about a man, years ago, with experiences from that era. It's empathy. That's what we do.
So blog readers. . . do you write what you know?
But there's more to that adage.
I have been emailed about five times in the last six months by college or high school students writing papers on me--or rather my books. Part of their assignments--and these students have been from across the U.S., so it's not all for one class--has been to write the author of the book they chose and ask him or her some questions, like why did you choose to write the book. Two students of the five or so picked Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven, a Red Dress Ink title. My sales for it were very good, and my editor told me that two weeks ago, with the comment, "That book proves writers don't have to write frothy, light books for chick lit readers to embrace it." Why did she say that? The main character has breast cancer. Her best friend is a gay man who has a horrific story of the events that occurred when he was "outed" in college. One of the people who wrote me about this book asked if I had breast cancer.
As I was writing the "back story," if you will, to this student, of the book's journey out of me and into my computer, I realized that in some ways, I wrote what I knew. I have close male friends with AIDS, men I adore. I had breast surgery for suspected cancer three years ago, two of my best friends had the disease. I nearly died from Crohn's disease 13 years ago--and my ex threatened to take my child from me by telling me he was considering subpoenaing my medical records as I lay dying. The character, Lily, in High Heels is a mother. As I wrote this student last week or so, I realized . . . wait . . . you don't write what you know. Not exactly. You write what you can empathically create.
According to Webster, this is the definition of empathy:
1 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it.
2 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this.
The capacity for this. THAT'S the mark of a true writer. That's what professors meant all those years ago when saying write what you know.
When I wrote Invisible Girl, I channeled six years or so of working in the Vietnamese refugee community as a volunteer English teacher, hearing their stories of life in the Philippine camps prior to gaining entrace here, their experiences as boat people, their lives in Vietnam. I could understand a mother's anguish, a soldier's disgust. I have that capacity. I cared about a man, years ago, with experiences from that era. It's empathy. That's what we do.
So blog readers. . . do you write what you know?
posted by Erica Orloff at 8:39 AM
13 Comments:
Empathy can be a heavy burden sometimes, but I think it's crucial to the creative process.
As a medical professional, I witness the extreme lows of the human condition on a daily basis. People who've never spent much time in a hospital environment can't even imagine the suffering that goes on. Believe me, you don't want to imagine. It's depressing, because there lies our potential futures, the ravages of age and disease and hopelessness. I do empathize with my patients. But sometimes, to preserve my own sanity, I have to shut it off.
Fiction is a better place for me. I can draw on what I know about death and dying, pain and heartache, etc., but in the end there's always hope. In real life, often there's none.
I want to sell books, and I want my readers to feel good. In my fiction, no matter how grim things get (and they get very grim indeed), there's always a light at the end of the tunnel.
So. Do I write what I know?
Only some of it.
It seems like every story idea I come up with now centers around the Philippines. American heroines in Filipino landscapes, mostly. I think I'm still in that stage of my writing where I'm a little afraid to look too deeply into myself and write what I truly know for fear of...I dunno. Opening wounds perhaps? Reliving past pains?
Although when I do, I know there's a fountain of fresh material inside me waiting to be tapped.
Hi Jude:
Yes . . . some of what we know ends of up the page. I think some people, writers especially, can just get into another person's mind or heart and write from that perspective. You don't have to BE in that hospital bed to write about it.
As for the light at the end of the tunnel, I'm there with you. THE ROOFER was relentlessly grim, but there is hope at the end. She gulps the fresh air of freedom.
E
karm:
I think if you write your exact experiences, it feels very naked. And sometimes, I think we don't write our exact experiences because it will feel too transparent on the page. More than once I have had pointed questions asked me about the mob, my parents, my experiences, based on what people see on the page. Inviting that . . . not for me. I prefer to hide behind my fiction--and even there people infer.
E
I write in aspect of things I know about. I give my mc bit and pieces of my personality. And things I wish I had.
We talked about this before. Our real life always makes its way into our books somehow.
Hi la:
I think yes, we have bits and pieces. But it's the capacity for empathy that let's us fill in the rest.
E
I don't so much write what I know but use my life experience.
I know what it's like to be scared, upset, angry and even if I haven't experienced the exact situation my characters are in I can draw on what I do know to make it come alive.
And writing YA is great - because 'I was that teenager'!!
Sara:
My second YA, High School Bites is about an outsider--something I know very well. And my third, The Poker Diaries, due in January . . . is about a teen torn between two very disparate lives--one with her father, one with her mother--and what happens when they collide together. Pretty "relatable" teen stuff.
E
One of the main characters in my WIP is a fifteen year-old girl. I'm drawing her tough and intelligent and streetwise, but I'm having a time getting inside her head. Any insights from you ladies?
Empathy, for sure and a deep enough understanding of the situation to make the reader empathize. That's where I think Lily (HH in H) was so well portrayed, there was something there for everyone with a heart. A young woman would fear the loss of a breast, hair etc. A divorced woman would fear repercussions from a vicious ex, but a mother....fears too numerous to count. I've also done the biopsy dance and neither time did it occur to me to wonder whether I'd need a bra when all was said and done, every thought centered around my family and making sure they'd have peace without me if the need arose.
So yes, I always try and incorporate things I understand, even if I haven't personally experienced them.
Jude, I have a 15 yr old daughter and a whole bevy of her friends here regularly. From my experience, regardless of how tough they appear on the exterior, the majority of 15's are driven by their insecurities and a need to fit in. If you'd like to email me for specific situations, I can probably help. I have tons of experience to draw on as we have always been 'the go to house', and I've participated in parent/teacher conferences for kids who weren't even mine b/c their own parents just didn't give a $hit.
Thanks Lainey! I would certainly appreciate the help. I'll be in touch.
Hi Jude:
My own exepriences with my own teen daughter (16) has been they are chomping at the bit to be adults. My experiences with "street" kids--as a mentor to unwed teen moms (not my own children, more of a foster situation)--is they are very numb. The situations I saw included crack-addicted parents, teens with STDs, teens as young as 12 who were mothers, teens with two babies wanting a third to keep their boyfriend, violence and domestic abuse (huge problem), and so on. Yet these teens soldiered on through things that would wreck most of us. They just had been through it all and seen it all. THOSE teens are too busy surviving the streets to care if they fit into a size-2, versus suburban teens being prone to eating disorders and so on. The street kids have had every adult in their life abandon them. No one can be relied on--and that's visible in their body language and how they perceive you. It's such a problem you cannot even BE a mentor in the program I did unless you committed to the minimum of a year with your teen.
E
Thanks Erica! That will help me a lot as I try to get inside my runaway's head. When my PI picks her up, the only adult she has any faith in is her pimp. So the girl definitely has issues.
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