Write What You Know? No. Write Whatever You Want.

Do you know a lot about murder? Disposing of corpses? Have you dabbled in corporate espionage or drug trafficking? Cannibalism? Have you lived in a submarine for an extended period or burrowed to the center of the earth using nothing more than your bare hands and a stinging desire to see what the hell is really down there? Have you seriously considered putting a bomb in the middle of Times Square and wreaking some widespread havoc? Call my crazy, but I’ll venture onto a limb here and say no, you’ve never planned to blow up Midtown Manhattan. But if you have, send me your name and address, and a recent photo too, if you don’t mind. Believe me, I won’t do anything with it. The FBI won’t be beating down your door in the next thirty seconds or anything. You’re reading this blog after all. That makes us buddies, even if you are a certifiable nutcase.

Thousands of books have been written by thousands of people who knew nothing about the topics they chose. For God Sake it’s called imagination. Creativity. Spontaneity. It’s a beautiful thing and its why writing is so much goddamn fun, when it’s not arduous and painful and tedious and still worth it, always worth it in the end.

Thomas Harris wrote The Silence of the Lambs. It was a great book and maybe even a greater movie but do you think he’s ever noshed on someone’s liver while polishing off a bottle of Chianti? Hell no, but I betcha sales of Chianti took nose-dived because he happened to choose that varietal. The same way that Rex Pickett, who wrote the book Sideways, had his pill-popping protagonist Miles say that no matter what, “I’m not drinking any fucking Merlot!” I’ll bet you a bottle of ‘61 Cheval Blanc that when Rex wrote that sentence Merlot was the first type of wine that popped into his head. Sure, he could’ve hated Merlot or been treated like a moron by some glorified waiter pouring samples of Merlot up in Napa, but I bet Rex had no inkling he’d send sales of Merlot plummeting and have Merlot vintners egging his house. Sales collapsed after that because movie-goers assumed that this dysfunctionally lopsided, lonely pill popper Miles, was dead right about wine. Meanwhile, it was just a movie. It was just Paul Giamatti doing a fantastic job portraying a middle-aged hot mess of a man, which isn’t much of a stretch for him, although I do love him as an actor.

Writing about what you don’t know is easier now than ever. Sure, you don’t want to place your story in the middle of Manhattan and drone on about all the lush farmland and affordable housing at your fingertips. That’s ridiculous, unless you’re writing about some post apocalyptic world. Outside of the original Plant of the Apes, those stories do nothing for me anyway. Sorry Star Wars fans. Jabba The Hut? I never understood him, or those other weirdoes hanging around some bar in the middle of the Utah desert. Oh, excuse me, the desert of some distant star on some distant planet in a galaxy far far away.

You need to be accurate about the places you’re writing about because, spoiler alert, your readers may have been there and will get pissed off if you take liberties with a place that’s nothing like the real thing. Readers want accuracy, they’re demanding that way. Real hotels and restaurants that they might have visited. Streets that they’ve walked on and remember well. If you’re going to write about San Francisco then capture the soul-sucking trek of hiking up Filbert Street as if you’re scaling the Himalayas. Revel in the amazing restaurants or how hopscotching over used intravenous needles on Market Street has become an adventure quest for risk-tolerant tourists. Talk about staring at the unbridled beauty of the Golden Gate Bridge with the Headlands soaring majestically behind it; or freezing your ass off in the middle of July then heading fifteen minutes north and feeling as if you’re going to die of heat stroke before laying eyes on Sausalito. You can go and experience it or look it up online. But do it justice.

Peter Benchley wrote Jaws in the 70’s but I’ll bet you my right arm his wasn’t bitten off by a shark. We can all assume it really smarts, though. The rest of it, the shark’s eating habits, how all that swimming is like ringing the dinner bell for Christ’s Sake, and how a Great White’s tooth can be as big as a shot glass is what simple research and good writing can do. And at the time, Mr. Benchley had to crack open an actual research book to get the details. He couldn’t just Google, “Shark Facts” and get more info than he could chew on in a lifetime.

Write what you know is a mantra proffered by those who don’t often know. It’s understandable. If you’ve worked in restaurants and know the ins and outs of the kitchen it’s fun and easier to write about it. Plus, everyone seems to have a fascination with large, hectic kitchens like the ones in restaurants and hotels. If you’ve never shuffled a dozen ten-inch sauté pans on an 800-degree flat top as six, saggy faced, middle-aged divorcees yell in your face for the teriyaki buffalo wings and nachos they’ve been waiting on while your own forehead-sweat sears your eyes you can read about it. Or you can ask someone who’s withstood the heat and lived to tell the tale. Like me, for example. You can even add in some color, like the fat line cook working the pantry station (salads) next to you and how she’s begging you to spare some shredded chicken and all you can do is toss her a few pre-portioned saran wrapped packs while wishing she’d wax that goddamn mustache of hers. It all paints a picture, doesn’t it?

If you have an idea for a story that you know nothing about don’t ever let that stop you. Rather than write what you know write what your passionate about, even it’s about a place that doesn’t exist. That frees you up even further because you’re bound by nothing. Create that world and hurry the reader into it. A colony on Mars where people are born old and grow younger as they age until they become so young they turn into a fetus before dying? Hey, that’s really weird but okay, whatever you’re into.

Jerry Siegel imagined a tall, strikingly handsome man who could fly and stood for justice with every authentic breath he took. His only weakness was Lois Lane and you guessed it, Kryptonite. Kryptonite isn’t real but Jerry came up with a great name, didn’t he? The man had a knack. Poll ten people and I guarantee you five of those numskulls will tell you that Kryptonite is real. Jerry would be amazed if he was still above ground. He made it up so Lex Luther could take down Superman. You see? In a world where we’re supposed to follow the rules to get along and do things like keep our job and stay out of jail, writing fiction allows you to remove the leash around your neck and run wild. I took my mischievous mutt to the dog park yesterday, so that’s why that image came to mind. But you get my point. Feeling that sense of freedom without any consequence is why people go to a shooting range with a poster of someone they absolutely hate. Shooting them in real life has its penalties but at the range, go ahead and empty that box of bullets. And on the blank page, empty that creative head of yours.

Write what your passionate about and if that intersects with what you know then bravo. If it doesn’t, so what? Just turn off your phone and tune everything out. In a world where our lives are often devoid of real surprises on a day to day basis, enjoy the wonderful anticipation of what you might put down on that page next.