Write What You Know: Notes on a Theme

What kind of stories do you keep coming back to?

Oct 27, 2024

Ever heard the advice, “write what you know,” and been confused about what that actually means? Or got annoyed at having limitations placed on your writing? Or just figured it doesn’t really apply to what you’re doing?

Well, I’m here to change your mind — or at least give my perspective on Write What You Know (WWYK), and hopefully show you that it’s actually a really useful and thought-provoking practice that can help develop your craft.

This post is part of an ongoing series called, rather surprisingly, Write What You know (read Part 1 here: None of My Stories are Make Believe), in which we explore how to use every scrap of knowledge, experience, emotion, and passing innocuous observation to add authenticity to our writing.

Oh, and coincidentally I also have a workshop comin’ up with Write or Die on this very subject, in case you’re looking for a more intensive, interactive deep dive.

Write what you know — without even realising you’re doing it?

It’s pretty inevitable that our writing will be shaped and influenced by our experiences, no matter how big or small, seemingly innocuous or life-changing. All sorts of things might springboard a new thematic exploration: different phases of life, the ups and downs of relationships, lingering childhood memories... And I dunno about you, but I frequently notice the same familiar themes circling around again and again in my work. (I touched on this a little bit in my last WWYK post, as I realised most of my stories are kinda non-fiction at their heart).

I think so much of what drives us to write is subconscious. Without even realising it, we often end up trying to make sense of things, inserting fragments of ourselves into a story, processing feelings vicariously through our characters, or playing out scenarios in our own imaginary sandboxes.

Our subconscious can also repeatedly steer us towards the same themes. Perhaps they pop up in different guises, different voices, different styles, genres or even mediums — but ultimately share the same roots. In my experience, those themes often tend to be the tricky ones; the deep and mysterious ones; the sensitive or difficult-to-process ones. But they can also be the wishful ones; the aspirational ones; the “aw man, I wish I lived in this kind of imaginary world” ones. Both types are good. Both are fascinating. Both are endlessly satisfying to explore. And both usually stem from something we inherently know. Or at the very least, something that subconscious is desperate to know more about…

So, it can be useful to acknowledge and recognise those ol’ familiar themes, tropes and patterns we keep coming back to, so we can begin to develop them, expand them, or even start to make connections between stories and ideas that we hadn’t seen before.

What’s your theme, bro?

If you’re interested in discovering how you might be unwittingly ‘writing what you know’, take a look at your body of work and give it a little objective assessment.

Do you get a sense of any particular themes you keep leaning towards? A hidden truth about what it is to be human — or a wider commentary on humanity as a whole.

Is there a question that keeps cropping up — answered or unanswered?

Perhaps you keep returning to a certain point in your life to draw inspiration from. Coming of age. Changes in relationships. Personal discoveries.

Perhaps you’ve been creating characters who are struggling with the same things you are (or characters who are a projection of how you’d like to be dealing with the same shit!). Outsiders. Hopeless romantics. Survivors.

Perhaps you can’t even put your finger on it, but there’s just a recurring mood, vibe or focus in your writing: yearning for things that are lost, or discovering a particular aspect of identity.

Perhaps there’s a certain type of place or situation that you keep coming back to. Home. Feeling uprooted. Discovering new lands.

Are ya seeing a theme yet? Maybe a few different ones?

And… are those themes perhaps also related to an experience, skill, desire, event, or piece of knowledge from your real life?

‘Cause here’s where we can start to get a bit more intentional about it.

Ask yourself:

What do you know about that particular theme, character, feeling, or situation?
Can you pinpoint a moment or event in your life that connects you to it?
What emotions does it stir up for you? What questions does it raise? Is there something you still don’t understand about it that you’re trying to figure out?
What have you learned through your experiences of this theme?
How has it changed you?
And what do you really want to say about it?

For example: I’ve been writing about the relationships between parents and children for a looong time, in a whole load of different ways — from teenager to adult to being a mother myself. I’ve clearly got a lot to say about it — or a lot still to understand about it — and because it’s such a constantly shifting concept, I keep returning to it as a subject for perusal.

I mean, look, it’s not exactly an original, never-been-written-about theme (and why should it have to be?), but my experiences are unique to me, so I’m able to draw from what I know about being a kid and a parent, and try to inject some realism into my characters and their relationships.

My perspective is also going to keep changing and morphing throughout my life, as my kids, my parents, and I get older; as we shift into a whole new phases; as we learn new things about each other, and ourselves. So as long as this theme feels important to write about, I’m able to keep writing about it — hopefully adding an extra layer of authenticity each time.

Of course, ‘what I know’ about this theme is massively subjective — and also perspectively tiny. I’m always going to be approaching these ideas through my own personal lens. And so, my stories about childhood and parenthood are always going to be vastly different from yours, despite how broad and vague the theme is.

Because the lovely thing about themes (and writing what you know) is that we can all write about the same things, side by side, through slightly altered viewpoints. A kind of familiarity-meets-unfamiliarity. A shared experience with endless variables. An opportunity to find out what others know about your chosen theme.

An important aside: When I first realised I kept coming back to the same ideas, questions and themes in my writing, I was actually kinda irritated.

“Oh my god, am I just writing the same shit over and over?! Am I stuck record? Ugh, why can’t I get over it? Or find something new to write about. No one wants to read twenty stories about the same thing!”

Which is fair, I guess.

AND YET.

Writing the same old shit is important. Especially if it’s shit you know something about. Shit you’ve been through. Shit you can deeply identify with and feel on a molecular level.

Because that’s when your writing is really going to sing.

And when you write about similar themes, over and over, you start to find new angles, look at things in new ways, or manage to navigate previously unreachable routes — simply by investigating your own knowledge more closely, and opening up your perspective a little more. You even have the opportunity to understand yourself — and others — better, too. Process some stuff. Indulge some stuff. Become an expert in… whatever that stuff is.

And maybe, eventually, move on to something new. Something else you know.

See? We can’t help writing what we know. We do it without even thinking. And by harnessing that inner knowledge, our writing can become even more meaningful — no matter how close the connection to truth, or how fantastical the interpretation. Simply because it came from somewhere real.

Now:

Put your theme to work

If you want to delve into this even further, take a little time to think about one of your recurring themes. It can be as abstract or as specific as you like. It might still be difficult to pin down, or feel kinda vague, like: “Uhhh, the power of FRIENDSHIP!”

Awesome. Chances are you’ve had plenty of friends in your time. You have innate knowledge of a whole load of friendly dynamics to draw on — from lifelong BFFs to that one toxic friendship that ended super badly… Friendships are complex and ever-changing, full of connection and potential conflict — a huge, multi-faceted subject that has infinite possibilities when it comes to ‘what you know’ incorporating into your fiction. Your protagonist always needs friends, right? And sometimes friends become enemies, enemies become friends, frenemies become, um, eniends…?! It’s complicated.

Next, think about how you’ve already explored your chosen theme in your writing:

What worked?
What didn’t feel quite right?
Which areas would you like to explore further?
How might you experiment with this theme in different ways or styles or genres?
What questions about this theme are still unanswered for you?
How does this theme makes you feel? (And/or how would you like it to make you feel?)
How could you expand this theme to be even broader?
Or… zoom in on it to be suuuuuper specific?
Why is this theme important to you?

There are no right or wrong answers here. Just have a think about your theme and jot down some notes. Hopefully some fresh ideas will emerge. Perhaps some interesting connections or even some epiphanies.

Let yourself freewrite, wander, play word association, jump from thought to thought – and see where your theme leads you. Hopefully you’ll find whatever inner knowledge you have about this particular subject starts to peek out its head and nudge you in the right direction. Because what we know desperately wants to put itself on the page.

An important note: If your theme happens to be anchored in a particularly difficult moment from your past that’s gonna be painful to dig up then I recommend you put the shovel down for now. You can just as easily write around your theme while keeping it at a safe distance — but more on that in later posts...

But discovering your theme can be seriously transformative. Because now you’ve drawn attention to it, whenever you come across this subject in your writing, you might naturally get thinking about how to bring a little truthfulness into the mix.

You might be more intentional about what you’re trying to say, and how you investigate this subject within your fiction. You might even start considering new ways of exploring and understanding it.

And by writing from a place of knowledge, you’ll find it much easier to write with confidence. Which will absolutely shine through your work.

I hope you’ll join me on the Write What You Know workshop on 9 Nov with Write or Die for more on all of this, as well as:

How to make a comprehensive catalogue of all the things you know
How to write truthfully about what you don’t know
How to create authentic people, places and objects
How to write around difficult emotions and experiences in your fiction
How to transfer genuine experiences into imaginary situations
How to keep developing your WWYK skills through observation and practice

Hope to see you there.

And I’m also gonna be posting up a monthly WWYK post right here, so please subscribe if you’re not already signed up to The Joy of Fixion!

In the meantime, happy (truthful, knowledgeable, thematic) writing!

: )