Is It Better to Write About What You Know
Write What Yous Know or Know What You Write?
Existence genuinely curious and knowing what y'all don't know are the seeds of good writing.
Common advice for novelists is to "write what you know," the thought existence that your plot and characters won't come up off as authentic unless y'all've been at that place, done that. That's fine advice, but in reality many neat mystery and thriller writers accept never been shell cops or detectives and have never shot or strangled anyone to death. I know a peak-notch, widely read law-breaking novelist who pens a serial with a woman protagonist, and I'chiliad pretty sure he's never been one.
Honestly, most of u.s.a. don't actually know very much about annihilation. What's important is having the motivation to overcome that gargantuan hole in the resume. It'due south true in fiction, and information technology's critically true in journalism, where missteps, misinformation and misleading claims can impact real things like other peoples' credibility, careers and safety.
Just how much do nosotros non know?
I've interviewed top cosmologists who are quick to say they are, plainly, not experts in astronomy, and vice-versa. This also happens within cosmology or inside astronomy. A lunar dynamicist may not know squat about Jupiter'due south Great Red Spot, other than what she read in the pop media. A botanist likely knows zip well-nigh ants. Ontogeny may restate phylogeny, simply how many scientists even know what that ways?
Numerous times, highly respected and accomplished experts in whatsoever narrow field take said to me, "That's not my area of expertise, you lot'll have to ask…" somebody in a highly specialized field that I didn't even know existed.
Leonardo da Vinci was a scientist, engineer and mathematician, and he knew his way around a canvas. Vivid equally he must've been, there was less to know back then. More than and more, the expanding database of man knowledge is compartmentalized, even amidst the most accomplished professionals.
How can a mere writer look to know much virtually the myriad topics that nowadays equally good story ideas every mean solar day?
***
At that place's specialization, of course.
There was a stretch of years, in the early on days of Infinite.com, when I'd written more articles nigh asteroids than anyone in the solar arrangement, I'k pretty sure. When there was news about space rocks, I commonly had a rock-solid mass of background in my head, a loose bunch of reference info on and effectually my desk, and a good chunk of the top experts on speed dial. I however learned something with every story, but the education was incremental. Then I branched out into general science writing, with the launch in 2004 of Live Scientific discipline, a sister to Space.com. Forced to tackle topics I knew little to nothing about, each commodity was a serious education.
And that'southward the signal. Each story should be an pedagogy for the writer. That is, for me, the joy of writing, be information technology journalism or fiction.
When I wrote the science thriller "5 Days to Landfall," I did extensive enquiry. Here's a mere slice (which includes some spoilers):
- I obtained behemothic flood-zone maps on architectural blueprint paper in big long tubes from the Army Corps of Engineers;
- interviewed leading hurricane experts at the National Hurricane Heart and elsewhere;
- read "A Wind to Milk shake the Earth," Everett Due south. Allen's book about the 1938 hurricane that struck Long Island;
- read "Learning to Wing Helicopters" a simple how-to book by R. Randall Padfield;
- interviewed a Coast Guard pilot who flew rescue missions off the declension of Alaska;
- hoofed it around lower Manhattan for hours and hours to imagine what water would await like busting through this hotel, cascading down that subway stairwell;
- read "The Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City" by Jennifer Toth;
- ate lunch in a lower Manhattan cafe, which I planned to submerge (and later on, during Hurricane Sandy, it did alluvion);
- studied historical tracking maps to sympathize exactly how hurricanes are probable to move and why;
- interviewed an expert who was helping develop the next-gen forecast model;
- drove the Jersey Shore so I could describe actual bridges and boardwalks and inlets and homes I planned to destroy;
- trekked to Coney Isle to see the vulnerable, seaside nursing homes for myself;
- read up on how nursing homes are organized inside;
- read a bunch of news articles about the devastation of actual hurricanes and what it's like to go through i;
- dug deep into the physics of high winds on skyscrapers;
- studied up on New York City's politically charged and securely flawed emergency operations;
- became steeped in meteorology-speak and the manner of ALL CAPS bulletins produced every few hours as a storm approaches;
- educated myself on how insurance and re-insurance companies tin be afflicted past disasters;
- examined how network TV cables wound effectually the floor during a press issue.
All that just so I could make stuff up!
The year I spent on that volume was eighty per centum research, and I went into it having already attended a National Hurricane Conference as a reporter and having written much well-nigh the science of hurricanes.
Simply put, in fiction and nonfiction, writers await stuff up and bank check stuff out. A lot of stuff. If you lot want to sound authoritative, you have to be authoritative. Yous have to know your topic. Merely equally a novelist has a character's back story in her head and may take a expert idea of what came before and afterwards the plot of a given story, the journalist must know more on a topic than what ends up a piece of nonfiction.
Some questions to ask yourself equally you research and write a piece:
- Have you looked into the history of the thing or state of affairs you're writing nearly?
- Are there arguments aimed at refuting the premise that deserve exploration, at least so you understand if they have merit?
- Are there other supporting lines of evidence across what you include merely which give you lot added conviction in the premise?
- Did you pull some strands that didn't yield anything useful?
- Did you find sources you were not expecting to find?
- Did your research spawn other potential story ideas?
- Have you asked what's probable to happen adjacent?
If yous can reply "yes" to most of these questions, you just might accept a worthwhile story cooking.
***
Whether in fiction or nonfiction, research can have many forms. Simply information technology starts with being genuinely curious, every bit opposed to thinking y'all know what'due south what, or wanting to change the earth with your brilliant compositions or sway someone to your eloquently stated bespeak of view.
You have to want to know stuff, non just show off what you know (or remember). It's this personal, inward focus and deep-seated sense of purpose and exploration that fuels nifty writing.
How, then, to go about it? At that place'due south no single answer. But there are several common tactics. It might mean gathering and reviewing a preponderance of data or studies or discussions on a topic to see if the amazing new angle you've stumbled upon is actually supported past a body of work. It might mean talking to several experts — actually asking questions as if you are not an expert. It might hateful reading some books. It could hateful interviewing the interested parties or the affected individuals, to tell a story through their experiences.
How do I know all this? I've lived information technology, having written more than three,000 news and feature articles over the years — some expert, some non and so much — and having edited at least that many. Then while I could have looked some stuff upward for this piece, and probably should have, it was a rare instance of drawing on what's already in the noggin. (I never rely solely on my knowledge when reporting on wellness or science or customs issues or when writing about just about anything beyond writing. I check and double-check, await it upwardly, dig downwardly and quote similar crazy.)
Oh, sure, I've written plenty of brusk news stories where I didn't piece of work near that hard. But that'southward merely a complanate, condensed version of withal principles, presumably regarding a topic on which I take some pretty solid knowledge (and where I'll even so be linking back to previous stories I've written, or stories I've read, to provide readers an opportunity to dig deeper).
I have a simple strategy that's served me well over the years: Only when a new story tin can naturally link back to multiple stories I've written before on the same topic practise I feel some confidence in introducing my own dominance into a piece. Even then, I always assume nobody cares much what I think; they intendance what the facts are, what the experts say, what the reality is. The more I can tell that story without being in it, the ameliorate.
What about first-person explorations and opinion pieces?
I'm always struck past young writers who wish to be columnists or write opinion pieces when they're still learning the nuts of their new job. They usually come with a great idea in mind. Rather than explain why they're probably not fix for that leap, I only ask them to outline five ideas. One time they realize how challenging that will be, how much research will exist involved, how much harder it is to be adept at that versus letting other experts tell the story, the desire typically fades. The best columnists and op-ed writers know their stuff, either equally doers of things or through years of reporting experience, or both.
Some aspiring writers desire writing to exist easy. Well, it can exist. If you lot've done your research, a story will practically write itself.
This is i in a serial of things I've learned as a newspaper and online announcer, marketing author, novelist, and editor of hundreds of other writers across three decades.
Source: https://writingcooperative.com/write-what-you-know-or-know-what-you-write-4ef90513955
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