What Do I Know?(1)
Most of us have, at one time or another, been given the advice “write what you know.” Even people who don’t write themselves have heard it. Sometimes this advice gets people writing furiously away – and sometimes it leaves them scratching their heads, saying “But, um, I don’t know anything.”
I think it was Lawrence Block who pointed out that we all know something. We know what loss, grief, sorrow, joy and frustration feel like. We know what it’s like to be human, to be a sibling, a parent, a child, a lover, a person who’s been hired, or fired, and a person who didn’t vote for that guy. It’s when dealing with this kind of knowledge that we become most aware that story is king. Without a story to give this knowledge context, you got nothing.
People do mine their own professions for story and character backgrounds. Dick Francis was a jockey and a pilot. Dashiell Hammett was a Pinkerton detective. Patricia D. Cornwall was a medical examiner. Kathy Reichs a forensic anthropologist – and the list goes on.
