Write What You Know and Slaughter the Cat by Jennifer Spiller
[caption id="attachment_7101" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Photo taken by kaibara87 on Flickr"]
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This weekend at a writing workshop, two panelists held opposing viewpoints on the old standard advice, “Write what you know.”
One panelist argued that most of what we know is dull. Our own lives aren’t good story fodder. Write what interests you; write your passion, he offered with a sage nod. I found myself nodding back. After all, I’ve never been bitten by a vampire, but I write about it.
The other panelist took issue with this view. Clarity is lost when you write about things you don’t know personally. She cited a character who seemed to be a survivalist but clearly knew little of the natural world of the forest.
I nodded at this, too.
My own view is we should write what we know and understand or can imagine vividly, emotionally. Then, if you want to write about a place or type of person outside your experience, you must RESEARCH. A lot.
As I listened to the two arguments, a nice, old-fashioned, incandescent bulb turned on in my head.
I had to kill the cat.
Now, before any of you go calling the ASPCA, please understand THE CAT IS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER.
But why, why? Why must the cat die? (Can you tell I’ve been reading too much Dr. Seuss)?
The cat must die because he keeps disappearing. I’ve left him on random coastlines, forgotten him in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, and disappeared him like an Argentinian dissident during a grueling quest. The cat has been nothing but trouble.
Originally, the cat seemed logical. My heroine is agoraphobic. She’s lonely and can’t leave the house. Her condition is hell on relationships. Personally, in that situation, I’d rather have a dog. But I realized she couldn’t have a dog in New York City and not walk it. There are professional dog walkers in New York, but then my not-so-intrepid heroine would have to (gasp) open her door and let them in. So I figured logic ruled out the dog.
Then my earth conscious brain turned on the flourescent bulb. Aha! (Beware the fluorescent brain bulb). She shall have a cat. She is a witch. Cats are simple. They don’t need to be walked. They use litter boxes.
There was only one problem. I don’t have a cat. I’m violently allergic to them, in fact. So my cat knowledge is very slim. At the time I birthed the cat, I didn’t consider it a problem. But it was. And I committed a sin. I did no research on cats. I did not bother to fall in love with the cat. So, neither did my heroine.
And because none of us in the story gave a damn about the cat, the cat became a big fat story problem.
I’m in revision. I could go back and research cats, fill my head with their habits, their mannerisms, their personal peculiarities, but I’m not going to. The cat came along for the ride in my first draft, but he never did anything. He didn’t save the day or alter a plot point. He was a useless fictional cat. So now, the cat must die.
It will be a bloodless death. The word processing program will search it out and destroy it wherever it rears its furry, useless head. By tomorrow, the cat will be nothing but a wispy memory.
The next time something appears in a story to which I have no personal, emotional connection, I’m going to ask myself:
“Is this a vital piece of the story?”
If it’s not, it’s getting tossed.
If it is, then I’ll have to do a lot of research. Because you should write what you know. You just not might know about it when you start writing. But nobody ever said knowledge had to be a static thing, right? We can always learn.
[/caption]This weekend at a writing workshop, two panelists held opposing viewpoints on the old standard advice, “Write what you know.”
One panelist argued that most of what we know is dull. Our own lives aren’t good story fodder. Write what interests you; write your passion, he offered with a sage nod. I found myself nodding back. After all, I’ve never been bitten by a vampire, but I write about it.
The other panelist took issue with this view. Clarity is lost when you write about things you don’t know personally. She cited a character who seemed to be a survivalist but clearly knew little of the natural world of the forest.
I nodded at this, too.
My own view is we should write what we know and understand or can imagine vividly, emotionally. Then, if you want to write about a place or type of person outside your experience, you must RESEARCH. A lot.
As I listened to the two arguments, a nice, old-fashioned, incandescent bulb turned on in my head.
I had to kill the cat.
Now, before any of you go calling the ASPCA, please understand THE CAT IS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER.
But why, why? Why must the cat die? (Can you tell I’ve been reading too much Dr. Seuss)?
The cat must die because he keeps disappearing. I’ve left him on random coastlines, forgotten him in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, and disappeared him like an Argentinian dissident during a grueling quest. The cat has been nothing but trouble.
Originally, the cat seemed logical. My heroine is agoraphobic. She’s lonely and can’t leave the house. Her condition is hell on relationships. Personally, in that situation, I’d rather have a dog. But I realized she couldn’t have a dog in New York City and not walk it. There are professional dog walkers in New York, but then my not-so-intrepid heroine would have to (gasp) open her door and let them in. So I figured logic ruled out the dog.
Then my earth conscious brain turned on the flourescent bulb. Aha! (Beware the fluorescent brain bulb). She shall have a cat. She is a witch. Cats are simple. They don’t need to be walked. They use litter boxes.
There was only one problem. I don’t have a cat. I’m violently allergic to them, in fact. So my cat knowledge is very slim. At the time I birthed the cat, I didn’t consider it a problem. But it was. And I committed a sin. I did no research on cats. I did not bother to fall in love with the cat. So, neither did my heroine.
And because none of us in the story gave a damn about the cat, the cat became a big fat story problem.
I’m in revision. I could go back and research cats, fill my head with their habits, their mannerisms, their personal peculiarities, but I’m not going to. The cat came along for the ride in my first draft, but he never did anything. He didn’t save the day or alter a plot point. He was a useless fictional cat. So now, the cat must die.
It will be a bloodless death. The word processing program will search it out and destroy it wherever it rears its furry, useless head. By tomorrow, the cat will be nothing but a wispy memory.
The next time something appears in a story to which I have no personal, emotional connection, I’m going to ask myself:
“Is this a vital piece of the story?”
If it’s not, it’s getting tossed.
If it is, then I’ll have to do a lot of research. Because you should write what you know. You just not might know about it when you start writing. But nobody ever said knowledge had to be a static thing, right? We can always learn.
