"Write what you know", they say. It's never really worked for me.

I've read a lot of your work well-wisher and it is real obvious to me that you know a great deal about life that comes through the stories that you tell too. I noticed that perhaps the only personal sign posted piece you've posted under that heading was an understandable rant about an arson attack you suffered. I'm glad you were able to give some expression to those feelings here.

I've always had problems with the 'write what you know' thing - even though most of what I write is drawn, in some way, from my own (narrow) experience or knowledge. I've usually found that when I try to write something I 'don't know', I quickly run into problems. But I'm lazy when it comes to research.

Bukowski made a pretty good living out of rehashing, in one form or another, the details of his life: the jobs, bars, women, etc. Not a wide spread of material, but he milked it for what it was worth. But then there are writers like Graham Swift, who claims he never draws on his own experiences - that everything he does is 'created'.

Maybe Stephen King can offer some consolation:

'The dictum in writing classes used to be 'write what you know.' Which sounds good, but what if you want to write about starships exploring other planets or a man who murders his wife and then tries to dispose of her body through the woodchipper. How does the writer square either of these, or a thousand other fanciful ideas, with the 'write what you know' directive? I think you begin by interpreting it as broadly and inclusively as possible. If you're a plumber, you know plumbing, but that is far from the extent of your knowledge; the heart also knows things, and so does the imagination.'

Perhaps it's not so much, then, what you know as how you express it. I once read the autobiography of a man who'd spent his entire adult life travelling the world on his bicycle. He'd been to just about every country. You'd think that breadth of experience - of 'things he knew' - would have made his story a fascinating read. But it was as dull as ditchwater. He simply didn't have the imaginative power to bring it to life. From looking through some of your work, I can see that you do have that imaginative power. And you're prolific. Perhaps you're being a bit hard on yourself.

How have these pieces 'failed'? Is that just your perception - based, perhaps, on an expectation that you didn't think you reached?

The bottom line is... whatever else you do, you write. You're a writer. Maybe you need to try - hard though it is - to suspend that inner critic. I used to get so hung up on trying to produce the best I could every time - which meant I let myself down an awful lot! The writing became such a precious thing for me that I'd end up with fearful depressions over it. I was trying too hard to succeed - and just ended up failing miserably. Then I gave up altogether.

Whatever you do, don't do that. Keep with it. Maybe try not to worry about things like plot, form, theme, etc if those are the things you think are 'failing'.

Just keep writing...

Good luck.

I recently watch the 2010 film 'Howl' after reading Ginsberg's poem a few days before. His honesty, his personal perception of his post-war word, the inclusion of his friends and his portrayal of the interest and contemplation he invested in their lives, not just his own - these are all things that resulted in me loving the poem.

The dialogue of in the film was, as far as I know, predominantly taken from Ginsberg's many letters and interviews. It includes a number of phrases on how he 'wrote what he knew', and it wasn't exactly simple. He drew a lot of influence from simply looking around him, trying to identify with random objects and such.

I can barely remember what point I was going to make from this! I think it was that to 'write what you know' isn't something that is always easy. In my opinion, as much contemplation, soul searching and thought hunting can be as necessary as the research needed when writing what you dont know. Both can result in stunning work when the vital effort is put in.

Thanks, Verdana.

I haven't written much autobiography and alot of what I have written has been deleted by me.

Based upon the comments of ABCtaler's, I think that people seem to like Happy Well-Wisher more than Sad/Angry Well-Wisher and so I tend to avoid writing about anything that makes me angry or unhappy; sticking mostly to upbeat spiritual poems; childrens stories and fantasy.

The 'arson attack' post was an exception to that rule because I felt so unhappy that I just had to write something about it.

Perhaps I am letting feedback influence me too much.

Thanks for your advice and encouragement, Stan.

You're right when you talk about 'plot, form, theme,etc'.

I find that there's nothing harder than making an event/events from my life into something with a beginning,a middle and a satisfying conclusion.

You're right about the inner critic too. I tend to look back and think "I was writing better before but my writing has really gone downhill" which might be
all in my imagination.

But, no matter what, I don't think I could stop writing because I'm pretty much a compulsive writer.

Good luck to you too.

I get tremendous encouragement from reading writers who go against the grain, and eschew the tradional elements of plot, form, beginning, middle, end, etc. I'm the same with film-makers - people like Jim Jarmusch, or Stanley Tucci. I love their films. They're not plotted in any conventional sense, but seem to flow along naturally and organically to a conclusion. I like Sherwood Anderson's stories in 'Winesburg, Ohio' for that reason, and the New Yorker tales of John McNulty: simple 'human' stories, but with a profound impact - and stories in which the structure seems to find itself as it goes along.

Oddly, I was reading earlier that William Saroyan struggled for ages to hit his stride as a writer - until he read a story by New York literary hobo Joe Gould, in a magazine. 'That freed me from bothering about form,' he said. 'His style was easy and uncluttered, and almost all other American writing was uneasy and cluttered. It was not at home anywhere; it was trying too hard; it was miserable; it was sickly; it was literary; it couldn't say anything simply. All other American writing was trying to get into one form or another, and no writer except Joe Gould seemed to have imagination enough to understand that if the worst came to the worst you didn't need to have any form at all. You didn't need to put what you had to say into a poem, an essay, a story, or a novel. All you had to do was say it.'

Amen to that!

I agree totally with you, Steve, when you say that
"to 'write what you know' isn't something that is always easy".

One of my major problems with writing about life is
how to make it conform to a conventional story structure.

Fictional Characters change and learn and grow; real people often don't. Fictional problems are resolved;
real problems often go on unresolved until death and sometimes beyond it.

I'd welcome any advice on how to structure an autobiographical story because so far I'm completely stumped.

Thanks, Stan.

I'll certainly give it a try.

I hope so. I'll only add that the more I worry about plot and form, the less I write. Nothing kills an idea dead quicker than thinking 'Where's this going? How shall I end it? How can I make it more dramatic?' Worst of all... 'How can I make this commercial?'

"I find that there's nothing harder than making an event/events from my life into something with a beginning,a middle and a satisfying conclusion."

I agree with that so much. So if I decide to write something personal, I usually go in with an idea of what I want to get across with the piece, and just write. No thinking, no planning, just words. Sometimes it's a mess, and no one ever reads it. Sometimes it can come out cohesively enough that I can edit it together. Every now and then it needs nothing, and is fine one its own.

The whole "not thinking" thing also keeps it from being… well, I'm not sure exactly how to describe it. But if I think about writing personal things they come out weird. It's much better for me to take my head out of it and let my heart guide my hand.

Yep! Agree with all the above 'cos I'm going on my holidays today!!!

One of my all-time favourite authors said, "Write what you WANT to know". He did a great deal of research for his book as he was writing it.

Hi well-wisher, I am going to limit my comment to poetry, because that what I read, so I just had to go and read that poem about the fire mentioned by verdana, and very good it is too, I think it's strength is in the immediacy of it, it's real, you wrote how you saw it and I saw it too, What I'm trying to say is, yes, it's important to get some facts right -what you know- but it's more important to write what you KNOW...what it feels like, looks like, to YOU, does that make sense?

You say, 'I find that there's nothing harder than making an event/events from my life into something with a beginning,a middle and a satisfying conclusion.'

Life, as I know it, is seldom like that. find what's in your heart and write it down, as raw and gutsy as you can. BTY, I also enjoyed 'pigeon religion' the image of the pigeons genuflecting is superb.

My dad wrote his autobiography in chapters, such as 'early days', 'school', 'finding a job', 'marriage' etc. The only boring bit was the biggest chapter where he went into (too much) detail of his working life.

I'm writing mine on much the same lines but trying to avoid the trap of writing too much detail about anything!

Hello W-W, Giving writing advice is tricky. My older friend, Toronto poet Raymond Souster, with 35 published print books to his name, gave me this advice years ago, regarding my poetry. "Dick, I will not tell you what you did wrong, but I'll tell you what I like."

From my writing years, I have learned to spot my mistakes, as Ray said I would. Now I tell writers---write and revise only when the first draft is completed. I have had professional editors critique some of my work and they ripped and shredded the soul out of my story. So now I simply figure out my own punctuation.

An analogy is---when my last adopted son joined our family, we had oodles of problems. A psychiatrist told us we should stop listening to all the advice from Children's Aid and other Resources, because none of their advice worked in his particular case. The psychiatrist said in most cases, those who live with the child in question, know more about what works and what doesn't.

In any case, you are a good writer, very prolific, and remember not everything you write need to turn out to be a masterpiece. But then, why not? All the best, from Richard LP

Richard, it's very comforting to hear that a published poet gave you such advice. I used to use a poetry forum where the members would destroy your poem, with seemingly no regard for the soul and heart of the piece. In short, if it wasn't written in a certain way, then you were no poet. No thought was given to the author's ability to choose his use of language/punctuation/poetic device. I often wondered why they were so harsh, and if they even dreamed of doing the same to published pieces. I stopped using the forum when i read 'you can only move up from the beginner's forum when you make the changes to your poem that are advised by the moderators'.

abctales is the complete opposite, and without this site, my confidence as a writer would still be shot.

Thanks to all abctalers!

If I may ask, what was the name of this forum? I feel like checking it out for entertainment value.

I honestly cannot remember, it was that long ago. Perhaps my mind has erased the trauma from my memory, haha. For all I know, it may not be so bad now - it may not even exist! I'll have a think and a search to see if I can find it.

May it have been Poetry Free-For-All? It seems very similar to what you described. At the top of the site it has a message that reads: "WARNING! We're mean. We're nasty. We're merciless. We're cruel. We're vile. We're heartless. We'll slash your soul to ribbons. We're an evil clique conspiring to annihilate your self-esteem. Ready?" And they have tiered forums and will move your post to lower tiers if they don't like it.

Write what you want to READ, too. :)

It wasn't that forum, no. It was slightly more inconspicuous, luring you in and then taking you down, haha. That one sounds utterly ridiculous. I can't imagine who would want to sign up to it!

This is an excellent thread and one I hope to contribute more to later when I'm not using my footery phone. I think writing what you know is a good starting point for any writer, but adding imagination and creativity will enhance any piece of writing.