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This is a guest post from Kate Lord Brown, author of The Beauty Chorus. I am totally in agreement with Kate on this topic. After years of being blocked by thinking I had to write literary fiction, I looked at my obsessions of religion, psychology, travel and action-adventure thrillers and finally wrote with passion!
Maybe you’ve come across the tired old line ‘write what you know’? It’s standard advice in a lot of How To Write manuals. I’d like to suggest you ignore it, and instead write what you love.
However, for the endurance race of a book length manuscript I think you need more than that. If, like me, you juggle writing with all the other demands of work and running a home, it has to be a burning question that will get you running to your desk instead of putting your feet up when everyone else is asleep. If you urgently want to find the answer to something, that drive and enthusiasm will be felt by your readers.
Sometimes you’re lucky, and you stumble on the key to your new story. I came across a tiny obituary for a woman who had flown Spitfires during WW2, and that sparked months of research for my debut novel. I wanted to know why people had forgotten about these incredible women. I wanted to know everything about their lives, what it was like to be a young woman in a man’s world during the War. I knew nothing about wartime aviation – but I loved their story, and I wanted to know more.
With ‘The Beauty Chorus’ I was lucky. The story came to me. But there is no point waiting for the Muse – as Jack London said: ‘You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.’
If you are searching around for a subject for your next book, or wondering why your current project has hit a wall, why not try the following:
- Take a big sheet of craft paper and some markers. Draw a circle at the centre and put your name in it. Radiating out from that centre, draw a line for each thing you love, and write it down in a smaller circle. Get really specific – not just ‘flowers’ from that write ‘roses’ or ‘tulips’. Brainstorm everything that excites you, really thrills you.
- Come back to your drawing a few days later, and see what jumps out at you. There may be two or three things, which is fine. I never need too much excuse for a new notebook, I don’t know about you, and this is time to reach for one. Write on the first page your chosen subject.
- Over the coming weeks, you’ll find you spot more and more information about this subject you love – it’s amazing how synchronicity kicks in and you will suddenly start seeing roses, or tulips, or WW2 aircraft wherever you look. Write it down. Paste up pictures and photographs in your book. Follow up tantalising leads. Tune into your story.
Within a very short time, you will find you have a resource book that can be the powerhouse of your new book. Just flicking through the pages of your notebook should excite you. From this seed a whole story can blossom – whether it’s about Crusaders bringing home roses, or the nefarious dealings of tulip traders, or the brave and beautiful young women who flew fighter planes.
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1 2 Next »Great advice. The passion you feel when writing about something you love will show up in your writing. Readers will recognize it and want to read more of your work.
hi Kate~
this is exploring! L♡ve this advice,,as an artist it is so fun to go outside what we may be classified as being,,and in this case you became an aviator, that is limitless, creative. thank you.
I like the idea of a resource book for passionate ideas. I think just getting in touch with what I love about the ideas - the theme, or the world, or the characters, or the premise -- is something I can translate when I'm less-than-passionate and stuck on something else. Thanks for this!
Great advice! I have a love of everything about the WW2 era and all of the 20th century people and events.I found my passion a long time ago, just took me awhile to decide to write about it! I can't wait to read your book!
Loved this article by Kate and I also love her excellent blog.
Not only should writers write what they love, but they should also pay attention to when they've found their "material." That material is what you might find yourself coming back to again and again, the themes and subjects that you can never stop exploring.
You're right about inspiration, too; writers can't wait for it to just show up. I couldn't agree more. Thanks for this post!
-Miss GOP
Really love the visuals associated with this advice--big markers, sketches of sorts, new notebooks. It's so easy to wait for inspiration; when you wait, it never happens. when you seek it out, it tends to find you.
Thanks for the advice!
As a lifelong writer, I've read a million articles telling me how to get my writing groove back, but this one really resonated. I love the idea of doing the drawing actually diagraming what I love (I love diagrams, does that count??). I love coming back to it a few days later and seeing what sparks. I love love love getting a new notebook and using it to collect everything that comes to me about my new topic! Really nicely done. Thanks!
This is the second blog post saying a similar thing I've read this week. For me writing what I know is a simple thing and it's what I'm doing, but if shy of content, I would say I love this idea!
Excellent advice. I've written things for money that I wasn't passionate about, and things I was passionate about that will likely never make money. And the latter is so much more rewarding.