Hey everyone! Welcome back for another week of writing advice. We’re getting closer and closer to the end of the series. This week’s post is something that I find really fun as a writer, but some people kind find it difficult. I hope that this post can help with this. So, without further ado…
Develop As A Writer: Write What You Know
There is one writing phrase that is said all the time in the writing world by young writers, old writers, aspiring writers, published authors, and more. “Write what you know.” But what does this phrase really mean and how do we use it to improve and develop our writing?
I’ve heard several different definitions of ‘write what you know’. Some people define it as, “writing based on your own life experiences.” or, “learn writing skills and then use those skills to write well”. I personally take this phrase to be a bit more literal. Write what you know of. Whether that be emotions, experiences, facts, writing skills, or anything else. There are a lot of different things you can do to ‘write what you know’ if you use this definition.
Write Feelings
One type of thing you can know and write about is feelings. This one is one you can write about without having to leave your house. And it’s something that makes good books. Some of the books that I have read that I recommended to several people that they loved weren’t always because they had amazing plot lines. Sometimes it was because they simply had a great emotional affect with amazing characters. Sometimes feelings and emotions are what you can use to really develop a story even if you don’t have a very strong plot. Or if you are really good at writing plot but you still aren’t finding a lot of people who enjoy your writing. Try writing feelings.
Feelings is one of the many things you can write about that you know that can help you develop your writing.
Write Experiences
The second thing that you can write is experiences. Every person has different experiences that they can write about to lend a little more credibility to their writing. This is also a good default way to write in feelings. If you have a hard time applying feelings to something that has never happened to you before start by writing something that has happened to you. There are many members of minority groups who have written stories about minorities. Because they wrote what they knew. There are many people who write about characters who’ve lived through great life crisis or terrifying wars who have in fact lived through those themselves.
Everyone has different experiences and those experiences are always something good or interesting to write about even if you think your experiences seem boring or simple.
Write Facts
Unlike writing experiences writing facts is another thing you can learn and know right from your home. Writers generally do these things as their writing. Like you are writing a scene that takes place in another country so you have to look a few things up about geography or culture. But if you were going to write what you know you should be able to take things you already know about and write about it. How to solve this problem? Learn to enjoy learning. Learn to enjoy researching. These will help you become better at ‘writing what you know’ because you will know a lot of things.
If you are learning a lot of things because you enjoy learning and researching you will have more things to write about because you will be writing what you know.
Write Skills
Finally, there are writing skills. Some writing skills come naturally as you continue to practice writing for months and months and years and years. But you can also learn writing skills by attending writing conferences, speaking to other writers, notice things from what you read, reading writing books, etc. This one might seem a bit of a no-brainer but if you know some interesting writing skills than you should use them in your writing. ‘Write what you know’ and write using your skills.
You can use the writing skills that you have learned and developed to ‘write what you know’ and increase the quality of your writing.
There are a lot of things you can do to ‘write what you know’. There are so many different ways to write what you know but whichever thing you decide to do or how you decide to write you can always learn new things, feel new feelings, and have new experiences. You can ‘write what you know’ but you can always learn more things to write about.
That’s it for this week’s post. I hope that it was interesting and helpful for developing as a writer. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, become a blog page member, share, and follow me on social media at the link on the bottom of the page. If you think of any other interesting things that you can learn about to write what you know make a comment down below. Next week’s post will be about writing classes and conferences. And remember,
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published. See you next week!
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