Don’t Write What You Know

 

This cat is boring. Don’t write about it. No-one will care.

Image © Carlos Porto

To me, ‘write what you know’ must be the worst advice ever. Who comes up with this nonsense? Yet it sticks, presumably just because it can be expressed in a short, memorable sentence.

If I were to write purely about what I know, I’d either have to write a book about the tedious grind of being an entry-level chef, or a compendium of inane factoids about Doctor Who. Cynically, I’m going to suggest that most other writers probably have equally ‘understated’ lives. Did I euphemistically use the word ‘understated’ – I meant to say ‘shit-boring’.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that writers as a group tend to lead boring lives – I’m saying that humans as a group tend to lead boring lives. I happen to know some of them personally, and they just won’t shut up about it – sometimes I wish I had the balls to just yawn in their faces and walk away.

Anyway, most of us wouldn’t want to read a book based on our own tedious lives and useless knowledge, so why should anyone else? Sadly, I get the impression that an army of failed-authors-in-waiting are even now slaving over their fifth, unpublished, semiautobiographical work, about an ordinary person who solves predictable crimes at the weekend with the help of their cat.

I think the problem arises because people take ‘write what you know’ literally – a much better piece of advice might be to write what you understand. There must be an almost infinite number of topics I can get to grips with, without having first-hand experience or a university degree in the subject area concerned.

So I suppose this is my advice to other writers, and to myself – for god’s sake, DON’T write about what you know. It bores the shit out of the rest of us. Research something fascinating, bizarre or implausible, understand it, and write about that instead.

Are you writing a novel about an ordinary person who solves predictable crimes at the weekend with the help of their cat? Please don’t e-mail me at pithytitle@live.co.uk or leave a comment below. Just stop writing.