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Inclinations

Priscilla Fagan

To Write or Not to Write What You Know

How many times have we heard, "write what you know"? Here are two inclinations to the contrary:

Writers don't write from experience, though many are resistant to admitting that they don't. I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy. Nikki Giovanni. Hello, no kidding. But I believe using our experiences can only give credence to our passion.

And then there is this; One of the dumbest things you were ever taught was to write what you know. Because what you know is usually dull. Remember when you first wanted to be a writer? Eight or 10 years old, reading about thin-lipped heroes flying over mysterious viney jungles toward untold wonders? That's what you wanted to write about, about what you didn't know. So. What mysterious time and place don't we know? Ken Kesey.

I'd like to challenge both these writers into honestly admitting that none of what they write comes from life experiences: A childhood friend we remember calling four-eyes, a high school sweetheart who still shows up in a dream, walking to the Roby School only to have to pass the cemetery that gave us nightmares. Who can say there are not parts of us in all our stories, even if we write fantasy; that tiger cat we had when we were seven, with the double paws and whiskers that tickled us awake in the morning, now about to return from the grave.

It is interesting to note Terence's thoughts in 160 BC, There is nothing in the world so unfair as a man who has no experience of life; he thinks nothing is done right except what he's doing himself. Do you know anyone like this? Well, try and explain to someone who doesn't want to hear. As Benjamin Disraeli said in a speech, titled University Education Bill in 1873, There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations. Believe me, only from experience have I been able to understand this.

What is experience? Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. So said Oscar Wilde in 1892. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary explains it several ways; 1a: direct observation of or participation in events as a basis of knowledge b: the fact or state of having been affected by or gained knowledge through direct observation or participation.

This is the definition I prefer; 3a: the conscious events that make up an individual life.

Staying with Oscar Wilde's inclinations, shortly after he was released from prison, in his epic letter to Bosie in 1897 he wrote; To regret one’s own experiences is to arrest one’s own development. To deny one’s own experiences is to put a lie into the lips of one’s life. It is no less than a denial of the soul. If we arrest our own development, isn’t that blocking our creativity? Without experience to draw on (that first kiss, the loss of a loved one, the first time we drove the family car), how can we expect to give credibility to our writing?

Keep in mind, this is not a discussion about whether or not we learn from our experiences. (That in itself is a whole other column.) I’m examining how we use or if we do use our experiences in our writing. Aldous Huxley wrote in Readers’ Digest, 1956; Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you. In a nutshell, do we take our experiences and turn them into fiction or share them in our memoirs to the best of our passionate ability? Oh I hope so!

I will leave you with happy, Holiday wishes and a Spanish Proverb to sum up what we’ve uncovered (or not) from this analysis of experience: to be or not to be. He who was first an acolyte, and afterwards an abbot or curate, knows what the boys do behind the altar.

Til the New Year, I emphatically remain,
Priscilla the eternal optimist
[although it is becoming more difficult ;-) ]