Write About What You Know

Whether it’s a story from life, a piece you did a lot of research about or one that was told to you first-hand, it’s important to be familiar with what you are writing about. I know this from personal experience. Having published and self-published many short stories, the one that fared the best was a story about my youngest sister’s tricky birth called The Hazardous Delivery. The other stories were alright, but lacked that personal touch which makes a work stand out. In this post, I’ll explore the reasons why you should write about what you know.

First of all, writing about what you know is a great way to make a story successful because you have a lot of material to include in your final work. You simply know more about topics you are familiar with. For that reason, you should try to create fiction and non-fiction pieces about them and share your wealth of knowledge with your readers.

Secondly, something that happened in your life carries more emotional weight than something that you saw on the news. Which of the following would you prefer to hear: a story about WWII from a high school student or a memoir about the struggles of being a jet fighter in WWII from a 98-year veteran of the war? I’m sure many of you would choose the latter. I definitely would!

You might be thinking, what if my life is simply not interesting enough to write about? I would say that I am certain that is false. Everyone has a great story to share. Whether it is the experiences of your loved ones, your own struggles and triumphs or something that effects you in society, you definitely have a story others want to hear about. If you are feeling practically unsure about others’ interest in your life, then try to be on the look-out for juicy stories which will interest others. A good writer always has her or his attention on interesting stories in their lives.

Additionally, you should write about what you know because that will be the most genuine form of writing. If you are a computer geek who is writing about how cool it is to a high school football star (when your school has no football team), most people will not be able to connect with you on a personal level. If, however, you write about gadgets and other things in your life, then many people can learn a lot from you and that will translate into more book success.

I would like to make it clear that I personally believe in all of your abilities to enjoy writing success. Having said that, there are certain things we all need to learn and improve on in order to be the best writers we can be. I have another post on writing with the end in mind. That’s a little trick that helped writers like J. K. Rowling and other bestsellers. I personally think that this piece of information (writing about what you know) is equally important and can help make your work seem more authentic.

Finally, writing about what you know makes you a more credible, authoritative and relevant writer. This is especially important for non-fiction and academic writing, but also, funnily enough, for fiction writers. We all want to hear something that people are knowledgeable about. Who will pay $10 for a book from an author who does not know what he or she are talking about? No one is the answer. Now, you need to ask what are you most knowledgeable about. The answer is things you have studied, experienced and generally occurred in your life. That is what you know; that is what you should be writing about.

In conclusion, everyone who aspires to be a writer should write about what they know. This is because you know more about what you know, obviously ; ), what you know carries more emotional weight than what you do not know about and writing about what you know makes you more genuine in your writing approach. Finally, it helps to know something to come across as credible, authoritative and relevant in your writing. I hope you found this post useful. It will go a long way for my blog if you like, share and comment on this post.