Writing Friday: Write What You Know

Hello, everyone! I know some of you want to hear more about my soon-to-be-published novel, Swept to Sea, but today I have something else planned for you. *grins evilly* MUAHAHAHAHHAHA

Anyway, today we will talk about the old saying "Write what you know" because I have heard about it many, many times, and I experienced something related to it last weekend. 

Do you write what you know?

I've always found this a rather silly statement, because some people write fantasy, and I write history with pirates and stuff I have never experienced in real life. But then I realized, I do know what I write about to some extent. I know my history, I read historical novels, and devour anything related to my novel's setting. I DO know what I am writing. The same can apply to other people. 

If you write fantasy, you may have never seen a purple unicorn flying around a field of pink grass. But you DO know your characters and your plotline.

This weekend, I encountered a very literal experience of "write what you know."

I was attending my Coterie Theatre Young Playwright's Roundtable Class, as I do most weeks. We had to go to a different location than normal, because the theatre was taken up by the next play that was opening, and the "lab" was taken up by something else. 

So, we go up to the old, abandoned American Heartland Theatre's rehearsal area and have our class. Everything goes fine. We have a great time and get ready to head downstairs.

There are a lot of us, but we decide it would be better to all take one trip instead of two, so we stuff all eighteen of us--seventeen teenagers and one adult--into the elevator and go down. 

Suddenly, between floors five and four, we stop. Stuck in the elevator. 

Now, we are all playwrights. So you know what we all do? Decide to write plays about being stuck in an elevator. Because now we can write what we know, and we know about being stuck in elevators. :)

After over an hour, we were rescued and everyone got home safely. 

It was quite an interesting, and even fun, experience, but one we can certainly write about.

So do you write what you know?