Advice is found in every corner of the globe. This repeated phrase is one I encounter often.
One of the most common pieces of advice I find handed out to writers who are still beginning to develop their craft is to write what you know.
I’ve never liked it.
True, it is a well-meaning piece of advice, but it is also mostly wrong. People take the term “What we know” as knowledge and experience. While both are critical to a nonfiction writer, for fiction writers like me, writing only what we know can quickly become counterproductive.
My first published book was Science Fiction. A captain and crew on a suicide mission no one realized they were on until it’s almost too late. Did I have experience as a spaceship captain? No. Suicide missions? Nope. Did I ever go up in a space shuttle or walk on the moon?
If I did, I’d have quite an assortment of vacation pics.
However, I did watch plenty of science fiction flicks in my time. Star Trek, Star Wars, Serenity, 2001, Interstellar, BSG (Battlestar Galactica for those not in-the-know) And, of course, countless books such as: War of The Worlds, Ringworld, Dune, A Princess of Mars, Ender’s Game, Starship Troopers, Battlefield Earth, The Martian and many many more.
Did writing a space adventure require experience running a ship in space? Not at all, but I have enjoyed stories throughout the years in every media you can name. Written, Drawn, Animated, Recorded, Live-Acted, Movies, Television, Online, etc., etc., etc… The greatest source of experience I discovered is the best one that is available for us all: Imagination. When you write, what’s the difference between having lived a story in your head as opposed to living it in real life?
In fiction? None.
One of my favorite classic scifi shows was Doctor Who. There’s a phrase you get to hear repeated throughout the series and is often said when someone first enters the TARDIS (A ship that looks like an old police box not much larger than a photo booth.) As a new person enters, they find themselves – not in a confined space with barely any room to move, but in a massive control room to a ship full of corridors, pathways, distant rooms…and a pool.
The phrase? “It’s bigger on the inside.”
That’s the most important thing to realize about being a writer. We are like the TARDIS. We’re bigger on the inside. What we imagine is vast and endless. The physical world holds a mere fraction of possibilities in comparison to what we create inside ourselves. You can take your life experiences as inspiration, but with the right spark, you can create the most amazing characters that will remain with you and your readers for years to come.
The stories you create within come from an endless universe whose moments of creation take place when inspiration strikes. That spark takes place behind your eyes, producing magical realms few others can fathom.
When you are one of the creative folk, you know you shouldn’t hold in all that magic. You know the world outside needs it. Creating an amazing world from our hopes and dreams demands sharing.
Share the characters you love. Share the characters you love to hate. Write the adventures you find in your dreams. Feel the magic at your fingertips and let it pour out with words and passion.
The next time you are advised to only write what you know, just smile and accept the fact that what you know expands beyond the limits of the world outside your head. Enjoy that little secret. Restrain the chuckle that wants to come out, then take the helm of your own starship and set a course for new realms. Explore the universe of your own making, filled with incredible adventures waiting to be discovered, lived and shared. Onwards!