Writing Tip of the Week
Write What You Know Even if You Don’t Know It Although You Do, You Know.
Writers are hammered with marching orders to always write what you know.
My novel Sparky and the Beard, about Jack Ruby and the Mob, takes place in the jungles, nightclubs and casinos, small towns, and Fidel’s dreaded Triscornia Prison Camp of Cuba in 1959. I was nine years old in 1959 and I’ve never been to Cuba.
The action in my Western novel, Trapp Canyon, takes place in southern Arizona, especially Tombstone, in the 1880s. I’ve been to Tombstone often, but never to the 1880s.
Much of my mainstream Gabby Durango centers on the emerging motion picture community of Los Angeles in the early 20th century, especially the rich background of the Black cinema. I’ve never been a cowboy star. I’m not a Black actor. My only two trips to Hollywoodland were on business and I never got near a studio.
I’m thinking about a science fiction novel, but I’ve never been to the Homuckulon Galaxy or the homeworld of the Snail People of Zythor. I know nothing of Heeling Forsooth, the hero, or his feline girlfriend Spxdinkalrr.
How can I write about what I don’t know when there’s so much I don’t know, you know?
The marching orders are misstated.
All the challenges mentioned above fall into the classification of window dressing. Window dressing is important, critical in many cases. Place a double action Colt revolver in the battle of the Alamo and you will get hostile letters. Most window dressing challenges can be met with diligent research.
That’s important, but novels aren’t made by research. More important than the window dressing is character and conflict. Regardless of the subject matter, you do know a lot about those two subjects.
You probably know nothing about battles in hyper-space, but don’t let that stop you from writing a space opera. We’ve all been high-tailing it down the Interstate only to be cut off by some angry, road-raged nutbuger dying to make the exit ahead of you. Think about how you felt at that moment. Use that emotion to open the hyper-space ambush. We’ve all had a tire blow out at highway speed. That’s the Zyglopian phaser blast. When you suddenly had to veer left to avoid being hit by old Uncle Snowbird pulling his ’57 Ford truck into your path from nowhere. That moment of intense fear is what it’s like to dodge a photon torpedo.
Sure, you can’t interview Ike Clanton about that little scrap at the OK Corral, but you do know a well-respected businessman who also runs a shady operation under the table. Sure, you can’t get into the mind of Wyatt Earp, but you do know a cop about whom your dad used to say, “Well, you know before he moved here, I heard….” What did Josephine Marcus, Mattie Earp, the hurdy gurdy girls or the school marm feel about men back in the Wild West? ?You can never know that, but you do know what it’s like to be turned down for a date. What it’s like to fall for the wrong person or for the right person at the wrong time. We’ve all had our hearts broken by Brad or BettyPam. Surely, you know of the Miss Davenport, the school librarian, and her crush on coach Ingamar, the blond, blue-eyed former Olympiad weightlifter from Norway. Those are your characters and your characters’ problems. That’s character and conflict you do know.
Yes, you’ve never faced a command decision just before D-Day or tried to work out a compromise between Travis and Jim Bowie at the Alamo. But, you’ve been in a heated committee meeting where things nearly turned into a brawl. You’ve been in fights on the school ground. You’ve argued your case and won and lost.
You know emotions.
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You know people – characters.
You know conflict.
You know enough to write a fascinating novel, short story, screenplay or poem. As important as it may be, the rest is just window dressing. Follow your heart and you’ll always know precisely what you need to know.
Quote of the Week: “To know what we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” Confucius
Recommended Reading: Careers for Your Characters by Raymond Obstfeld and Franz Neumann
I’ll Be Signing Books:
Desert Foothills Book Festival – October 19, 2024
Paranormal Weekend at the Superstition Mountain Museum – October 24, 2024
Arizona Author’s Association Holiday Book Fair – November 30, 2024
Shameless Self-Promotion:
YouTube/Podcast Appearances: Coast-To-Coast AM With George Noory; Monster’s Lounge; Sasquatch Paranormal Podcast; Afraid of Nothing; Patricia Monna Talks with Pendulum Dowser Dan Baldwin; Journey Through the Gate: Old West Spirits with Dan Baldwin; Journey Through the Gate: Dan Baldwin Author/Psychic in the Superstition Mountains; House of Mystery Radio Show on NBC: Dan Baldwin Psychic Detective; House of Mystery Radio Show on NBC: The Psychic Detective Guidebook; Horsefly Chronicles with Julia & Phillip Siracusa: Dan Baldwin & George Sewell; Watchers Talk: Is It Possible to Communicate with the Departed?; X2RS: Speaking with Spirits of the Old West; Andy de Codes: Dan Baldwin; Vincent Zandri? from The Writer’s Life Episode 851: Dan Baldwin; Rob McConnell Show: Dan Baldwin – The Psychic Detective Guidebook; Dangerous Thoughts; Generation X Paranormal, Generation X Paranormal; Typical Skeptic; Strategies for Living; Conflict Radio, The Energy That Surrounds Us; Shifting Paradigms in Medicine;
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