I thought the 'write what you know' advice was just for beginners

For years, I figured that rule was too basic and limited creativity. Then I tried writing a short story about a character working in a library, a job I've never had, and it felt totally fake. I switched gears and wrote about a character who restores old furniture, which I've done for about 5 years. The details about stripping varnish and the smell of linseed oil made the whole piece feel real. It convinced me that starting with what you know gives you a solid base to build from, even for fantasy or sci-fi. Has anyone else had a prompt or piece of advice they dismissed that actually worked for them?

3 comments

3 Comments

averywilliams1mo ago

Totally get that. I used to think "show, don't tell" was just writing teacher nonsense. Then I read my own draft where a character was "very angry" for the third page in a row. Realized I needed to actually describe the slammed door and the muttered curses. Felt like a real idiot, but it fixed the scene.

tara_jones941mo ago

My first novel had "he felt sad" 47 times. Reading it back made me cringe so hard I finally understood.

hugoh551mo ago

Oh man, slammed doors and muttered curses hit different, right? But here's a question that's been bugging me: when you're deep in a scene and you know you gotta show instead of tell, how do you stop yourself from going overboard with the showing? Like I had a character who was supposed to be "nervous" and next thing I knew she was fidgeting with her sleeve, tapping her foot, chewing her lip, glancing at the clock every two sentences... it was like a checklist of nervous tics. Did you run into that problem where you fix the telling but then end up with a scene that reads like a performance review of every possible body language for an emotion?