But You Just Have To Dig Into Yourself And Transport Your Experiences - Tumblr Posts

I used to hate this tip, too, but then I realised that maybe we should not take it that literally. If you are Britsh, you might not know much about the highschool-system in America, but you probably know some things about friendship. You know how a first love feels and you know how hard it can be to share a school with people who have bullied you for years. Or maybe you don’t know that, either. But you sure know what humiliation feels like. We have not attended executions, but we have seen scared people and we know suspense.

‘Write about what you know‘ does not have to be about facts. It can be about feelings, about insights and moments of understanding. You can make your readers believe the most fantastic things and experience the most amazing events, because you can base the sensation of casting a spell on the electricity you felt when you touched an escalator in the shopping mall. 

Maybe all this dogma means, is that you don’t have to make everything up. One of the truest thing I ever knew, is that I feel safe as long as I am the only one in danger. That does not mean I have to write about a college girl with insecurity issues. I can write about a Chosen One in the middle ages. But he will feel real, because I wrote him based on something I know

You know what it would be like if we all only wrote about what we know?

BORING AS SHIT.

You’re British and want to write a highschool AU set in America? Sorry, you can’t, even if you research you might get it wrong. You’re an artist and you want to write about geologists? Nope. Not for you. You’re writing a zombie apocalypse AU? Not if you haven’t lived through a zombie apocalypse. You’re writing a space AU? You better be an astronaut (even if you’re an engineer or technician you might get something wrong about spacewalking!!!). You’re writing meta about elf biology? You’d better be a fucking biologist or you might get something wrong.

So do some research online and write your AU. If someone who knows more about that thing offers to help you, great! If they don’t, you can do it anyway. You don’t need a Stamp Of Approval™ in order to write your stuff.

And if someone is rude about it because it doesn’t fit their standards? Oh well, too bad for them.