Entry #1 - Writing What You Know

So this is my first time writing a blog. I’ve read blogs before, and I’ve dabbled in a bit of creative writing before, but this is the first time I’m making a blog. This blog will contain some personal lessons to creative writing that I’ve learnt along the way, or perhaps something interesting that piqued my interest. That being said, I should perhaps start with an introduction.

My name is Hans Morris, I’m from India and I’m turning 21 this December. I love to read books, listen to music and play video games. I can play the drums and I enjoy playing football and badminton.

Now, onto the topic for today, Writing What You Know.

I know this seems like something obvious, after all, how can you write about something you don’t know? But I have come to the realisation that this also applies to more than just a plot.

For example, let’s take one of the activities we had to do. For the said activity, we had to borrow 2 books from the library, find a few key points from skimming, and write a short story using those key points. I managed to borrow 2 books on psychology and self-help, but due to the process of creating a library account (something that I had not done at this point) as well as waiting for over half the class to complete the same process, this ‘class activity’ became ‘homework’ due to a lack of time to complete it in class. The plot I came up with was as follows, somebody who is clearly in need of help, doesn’t get the help they need from the dozens of bystanders. One person, presumably their friend, would come to help them. Obviously, there’s more to the plot than this, but those plot ideas are more fluid and change based on how I execute the core plot ideas.

My first idea was bullying. This is something I have experienced in the past and something I know how to write. However, something told me that the idea wasn’t appropriate, and to scrap that idea and choose another method to execute the plot ideas. And so, I did. I tried many other ideas, a beggar on the street, a high-tech future, an old fantasy with wizards and such, but every other idea I had, I could never really relate to. I persevered through it and attempted the expand on the beggar idea.

The thing was, I was never happy with the ‘final’ product. I kept editing, re-editing, deleting sections and rewriting, and kept going on and on, until a friend of mine told me to stop. She is doing a creative writing course herself, and she told me to just go with the original idea I had, the idea about bullying. After a lengthy conversation with her, I realized that maybe my idea isn’t the best idea objectively, but subjectively, to me, it is my best idea, and that I should always follow my best idea, especially since this time it’s what I know.

Long story short, I scrapped the essay I spent days on and redid the essay within 30 minutes of the submission deadline, and it’s safe to say, I’m so much prouder of my new essay than the old one. The essay resonated with me more and I knew what I was writing about.

And that’s the story of how I did an essay in less than 30 minutes while also learning about the importance of writing what you know, in both the plot ideas and execution of the plot ideas.