Write what you know—and be sorryA novelist known for his 'mind-bending' originality takes aim at the most common of all literary aphorisms
Published:
April 8, 2010 Write what you know ... and prepare a toast. To a life without shooting
stars that carry strange life forms, talking animals, ma-chines that
come to life, mysterious strangers, sudden revelations, words you’ve
never heard before—and the thoughts in other people’s minds. You may
have to forfeit forever the music of a close-range gunshot on a cool
blue morning or the clash of battle-axes at the gates of Mordor
(although you may not miss the hiss of the demon who’s taken over your
spouse’s body).
Indeed, you stand to sacrifice much more than you gain by following
this stale and unexamined bit of advice (which is offered with
relentless frequency in writing programs, workshops, conferences,
articles, etc.). In fact, the list is so very long of what you stand to
lose that it forms a curious index of precisely what so many of us
might well consider to be what literature and therefore good writing
actually is about (including a lot of passion and bizarre situations
that get us aroused).
Yet it seems like such innocent, practical advice, doesn’t it? So,
perhaps we should both unpack it, discuss its weaknesses, and consider
a counter-strategy, for the core issue is peculiar to writing and
separates it decisively from the other arts. It also applies, I’d
maintain, to all forms of writing, from fiction and poetry to
expository and rhetorical writing. |
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