Probably the most classic core of writing advice is “Write what you know.” On the surface, that seems to make a lot of sense, and I’m sure it has worked for thousands upon thousands of writers. It didn’t work for me.
When I was a beginning writer, I had two literary heroes: Jack Kerouac and Ernest Hemingway. A lot of aspiring writers in my day had those guys as heroes. Kerouac and Hemingway weren’t so much my heroes because of what they wrote (although that was a big part); it was more the ethics under which they made their writings.
His things seemed to be really true. They took it from events they had actually lived through, people they had actually met, wisdom and insights they had gained in real life. He admired that. He looked manly and honorable and hairy-chested. I tried hard to do it myself. I put out three novels, none of which saw the light of publication, that were my version of that ethic. The books weren’t terrible. There were many good things in them. But they weren’t good either. They never reached the level where I could, in good conscience, ask another human being to read them.
What saved my life was getting rid of that ethic. I was living in New York City then, on twenty bucks, I had just finished the third of those manuscripts and was showing it to my friends and he gave me that frozen plastic smile back when I asked them what they thought of it. He was about three days away from hanging me. Then, from somewhere, I got the idea to try out a script. For some reason, the change of medium freed me. He gave me permission to invent things. I decided to try a story and characters that had nothing to do with me and nothing to do with my real life.
It worked. Here’s my theory on why:
The part of us from which we write is much deeper than our everyday selves. In fact, it has nothing to do with our everyday selves. It comes from the Muse. It comes from the unconscious. It comes from somewhere that we only turn to in dreams, intuition or inspiration.
Good things happen when we write from that place.
When we write only what we know, we limit ourselves to the territory we have already covered. When we write what we don’t know, we launch into terra incognita. That’s where the good is.
The first piece I did following this advice was a script about prison. I have never been arrested; I don’t know anything about life behind bars. But when the script was done and I showed it, people pulled me aside and whispered, “Hey man, where did you do time?”
That was a revelation for me. And it has been proven time and time again. In writing, when I completely make something up, the reaction is usually, “Wow, that was very convincing.” When I write from reality, people say to me, “Dude, I didn’t buy that shit for a minute!”
It takes a bit of madness to write what you don’t know. It’s like jumping to the bottom. But it’s also tremendously liberating. I am now reading a wonderful book called Improv Wisdom by Patricia Ryan Madson, who for years was one of the star drama teachers at Stanford. Her thesis is “Don’t prepare, just show up”. In other words, trust the mystery. She opens her mouth and looks at what comes out. I heard Jackson Browne say that he writes songs to find out what he thinks about something. In other words, he doesn’t know how to get in.
If you’re a writer (or any kind of aspiring artist or entrepreneur) and find yourself stuck, a good trick is to simply write (or enact) something entirely from left field. If you’re a man, try something with a woman’s voice. Write something from another century, from Mongolia, from Mars. Just dive in and do it.
I have found, on more than one occasion, that I can write characters who are smarter than me. I don’t know Tom Hanks or Meryl Streep, but I bet if you or I knew them, they would be the nicest and most decent people you can imagine. However, look at the variety of characters they’ve played and they’ve been completely convincing in doing so. I’m sure Anthony Hopkins is a wonderful, sweet guy. But he scared the hell out of me as Hannibal Lecter.
There are things “down there” in all of us. It is vast, deep and limitless. That is the vein that we need to exploit as artists and as entrepreneurs. I’ve heard new businessmen say that the two qualities they needed most in their start-ups were arrogance and ignorance. You have to be a little crazy (or desperate) to write or do what you don’t know how to do. But there is great wisdom and magic in that act. Demonstrate faith in the universe, in the Muse, in the source of all inspiration. And that faith is almost invariably rewarded by the cosmos and vindicated by events. I recommend it.