Write what you know. I have said this. In an independent magazine interview, at a film festival Q&A, to aspiring writers and actors who have asked for my advice, I touted the same suggestion I was given way back in my advanced creative writing classes in high school. Write what you know.
Only, here’s the thing. You only know so much at any given time in your life. And do you “know” it because you researched it or because you lived it? Where did you do your research? Is this an impartial and unbiased view? How can you be sure?
In fact, if you are only supposed to write what you know when you are 17 years old, you might not know too much. I don’t mean this condescendingly. I mean, depending on what has happened to you, where you grew up, whether or not you have strong support and the things you need to develop as you were meant to, or if you have experienced trauma, you could know a little or a lot. Have you ever been in love? Have you ever been abused? Do you even know if you are being abused? And what you have experienced and dealt with, and your viewpoint on it, may be completely different than another person in virtually the same situation.
For example, if you were say currently 15 years old and for the most part you have had a fairly mundane and regular existence, but the last year of your life has been spent locked inside your own house with your immediate family, what you might “know the best” is how utterly crazy you feel. You might know how nasty your parents can be to each other. You might know how much it sucks to stare at a computer screen all day and have it pass as “school.” You might know what it feels like to be in such despair, but actually have all the things you need, and therefore not even understand why you are so sad. Or you might know how beautiful it is to spend a lot of time with your family and have no distractions. You might have been able to complete work more easily in a less busy schedule. You might know sheer gratitude for more time to yourself as an introvert.
DARE you decide to write something you don’t know? Something you are imagining or wishing? Something you have created inside your own head to keep sane and occupied. Dare I, as someone who has never had a corporate job or learned to throw pots, imagine what it might be like? What if I have never been to China. Can I write about China? What if someone writes about what he/she/they imagine it’s like to be me, a white mom of four, who lives in a middle class suburb of Minnesota, sends her kids to public school, and goes to church. Do they have it right? Do they really know?
I say, write what you WANT. Um, not if you are supposed to be reporting facts, making documentaries, or writing history books of course. Those writers are reserved for fair/ unbiased/ impartial/ true facts/ no opinions/ type truth. That type of writing is very specific and might I add very difficult for me personally since everything I have seen and experienced peppers into my writing on the regular. And if you are writing opinions and advertising them as facts you are a dangerous person. But for all of you fellow creatives out there: the screen writers, the novelists, the bloggers; write your opinions, your imaginings, your what ifs. Write what you love or hope for. Write what you are afraid of. Write what no one else has written yet.
As an actor you are always trying to imagine yourself in someone else’s shoes. You research your character, dig deeply into what it may have been like to be that character in real life. To name a few I’ve played a prostitute, a cabaret dancer, an MMA fighter, a Jewish mother in hiding during WWII, a young dental hygienist, a hair stylist who almost gets murdered, a nurse, an unfaithful wife, a waitress who hates kids, and Davey Jones. Yes. Seriously. In a really wild short film. I’m NONE of those things. Well, I waitressed for a bit in high school but I love kids, and I’m a mom but I’m not Jewish. Part of the appeal of being an actor for me has been to go outside of myself and portray something I am not. Maybe a little bit of me sneaks into each of my roles. But some of the goals in becoming that character and portraying that character is empathy, compassion, some form of understanding, and acceptance. Occasionally I will play something I have actually been; like the former singer in an estranged band, a mom who’s ready to lose her mind about the little things, or a woman who has lost someone she loves.
If you have read enough books, taught enough classes, researched enough, do you know what you are talking about even if you haven’t lived it? Here’s a little secret: nobody knows anything, and everybody thinks they know everything. If there is one thing I have come to understand in the last year, it’s that those who really do know, who have a tremendous amount of wisdom, stay quiet a lot in our current society. And those who think they know everything talk really really loudly and frequently. I have been guilty of this in the past. And sometimes I do have the expertise, and I should be talking. And sometimes I need to remain quiet. That’s good advice for everyone by the way. However, what we as artists can’t be doing, is staying silent about what we think, hope or imagine, because we have to constantly be worried it’s affecting someone’s delicate sensibilities. That is the death of art. It’s the death of comedy. It’s the death of freedom of expression. And that is very dangerous.
Recently I had been given the opportunity to audition for a film based off of a fantasy novel. When I heard about the character I was intrigued and delighted. She exists in the mind of some creative fantasy writer and I could make her come to life. For a moment I let my mind wander to what it would be like to be a fantasy writer. I have always been a “slice of life” “life is art” “art is life” kind of writer. A “reality” based “human condition” type writer. A “write what you know but make it funnier” type writer. I thought about the FREEDOM of being a fantasy writer. As artists we should all have that freedom. We should be writing and making and creating something we think or know with the freedom to show it as we please. We are not INSIDE THE BOX. Write what you want.