“Write what you know.” The quote is variously attributed to
Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway. The Hemingway version actually reads
“I decided that I would write one story about each thing I knew about.”
Tortured English for my two cents, but who am I to argue with Hemingway. He was
an ace at covering his bases, and as he matured, he must have realized that
writing what he knew might be a tad boring so he decided to ask himself “What
did I know best that I had not written about and lost? What did I know about
truly and care for the most?”
The last is the money question for me. What do I know about
truly and care for the most? What question do I want to let my characters help
me examine? The answers have nothing to do with spending months cooking on a
boat—when I had no idea how to cook, or spending every weekend in the Caribbean
throughout the 1980s. Yes, I know all about those things, but who cares?
What do I know about truly because of those experiences?
Gratitude. The men on that boat taught me to cook. Their efforts kept the
captain from putting me ashore when he discovered I was a fraud. Because of
them I can make a full meal from any three ingredients, and I know the gossamer
silk feel of the trade winds when they kiss your cheek in your sleep. Mercy. A
woman in Sint Maarten took me into her home and nursed me back to health when I
had dengue fever and no place to stay. She taught me that having enough is
being rich, sharing it doubles the wealth, and there is always room for one
more. Because of her, I know the honey-sweet taste of sucking on a hibiscus
flower, the prickly feeling of a bananaquit landing on your arm, and that peas (a
type of bean) and rice can extend any meal.
If I’m doing my job as a writer, then each character I write
is informed by their own unique blend of qualities that breathes life into
them. The gruff sailor can realistically display a gentle side. A woman can
follow her heart to defy her family and display Herculean kindness. These are
things that I care the most about. The deep well from which mankind draws to
form and shape behaviors that are as often ephemeral as they are immutable.
Those are the questions I want to examine, how each character, in life and
fiction, is the architect of their own story.
Nice blog, Kait!
ReplyDeleteKait, your comments are spot on. It is that spark deep in a character's heart that surfaces under duress, turns his world upside down and sends him on a journey that both terrifies him and gives him a sense of power and abilities he never knew he possessed.
ReplyDeleteI often feel like I am conveying the character's story rather than my own.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Margaret!
ReplyDeleteWell put, Sasscer. The best times as a reader and a writer are when you can feel that spark in a character and they leap from the page.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, Warren. In many ways, our characters are our children. We do our best to give them a good grounding,but they turn into individuals and set the writer's plan on a new course.
ReplyDeleteAll of our stories (and characters) emerge from ourselves and our experiences. How we distill and present them is the very basis for our work.
ReplyDeleteSo true, KM. Which is why it is so gratifying to be a writer. Our experiences are wet clay that we shape into characters with lives of their own.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kait. I've often thought about that "write what you know" business, but I think you nail it when you add the "what you care about." I wrote my first mystery about a place I know well, but the thing that really propelled me is that I truly care about what is happening to that island. I think the writer has to care about in situ, at least, I do.
ReplyDelete