"Write what you know." That's a familiar phrase among writers. But what exactly does this mean?
I was talking to a friend of mine who brought up a very good point.
"Yeah. I hear that advice all the time. "Write what you know" or whatever. And generally I agree, but when it comes to genre that advice just doesn't follow. Know what I mean?"
To which I replied:
"Yes, I do know what you mean. What you know is the substance, not the subject. You can put substance into any subject (genre)."
Hence the title of the post.
Every genre has characters, whether they're humans, animals, inanimate objects, even ideas can be characters. Let's call this, characterization. That's substance. Dialogue, description, symbolism, morals/themes, are all parts of substance, as well as others that I cannot think of at this time.
What is subject? Genre. Fantasy, horror/thriller, adventure, steampunk, western, what have you. Each genre has its own elements that make a story that genre (dragons, fairies, magic, for fantasy, for example). These elements are must haves to create genre.
Once you find what elements are in each genre, you can then apply the substance.
Think about life. Let's pretend "life" is the genre (the subject). In life, we all have struggles (a substance). If we know the substance, we can apply it to each "life" because we know that every "life" has the same substance (characters, dialogue, etc.). But it's the genre that dictates not the substance itself, but the kind of substance.
Write what you know.
What do you know? What do you think "write what you know" means? Did this post make sense? What is your opinion on the matter?
