The Worst Piece of Writing Advice I Ever Received (And How it Eventually Became The Best Piece!)

Over the years I think I must have read hundreds and hundreds of pages of writing advice. I’ve written stories for as long as I can remember and so I inhaled every piece of advice I could find – good and bad. The one that kept cropping up was that old classic “Write what you know” and I have to say it was my least favourite piece of writerly wisdom because I took it way too literally.

When you’re an aspiring author, aged just fifteen and a bit weird, full of angst and hormones, you don’t want to write what you know because what you know isn’t much; I wanted to write about other places, other things, and I took that particular piece of advice to mean that I couldn’t or shouldn’t.

So, in an act of writerly rebellion, I decided that my first full length novel would be a story inspired by my obsession with adventure movies (think Raiders of the Lost Ark and Romancing the Stone) and my absolute love of the actor Cary Grant. I told you I was a slightly odd fifteen-year-old, didn’t I? I set to work penning my first novel; a romantic adventure set in a remote South American outpost in the late 1940’s. It featured a plot and characters that borrowed heavily from Cary Grant’s classic 1939 movie ‘Only Angels Have Wings’, and when I say ‘borrowed heavily’ I really mean completely plagiarised the whole plot. In my story (and the movie) a beautiful and sassy cruise ship performer gets more than she bargains for during a stopover in a South American port.

She meets and promptly falls for, a rogueish local air freight pilot and has to choose between returning to her ship or staying with the enigmatic, brooding flyer who can’t quite manage to voice his love for her. All very romantic but about as far removed from the advice to ‘write what you know’ as my acne riddled fifteen-year-old self could get!

To this day, that novel remains unfinished and forgotten because that piece of writing advice I hated so much actually turned out to be true. Not because I hadn’t been to South America (still haven’t) nor had I encountered a brooding pilot with commitment issues (again, still haven’t had the pleasure) but because I was trying to write about feelings and motivations that I didn’t understand.

At fifteen I had yet to experience the levels of passion and love that I was trying to convey in my characters. And it was then I understood what that piece of advice truly meant; it had nothing to do with my lack of topographical knowledge about South American port towns and everything to do with my lack of experiences as a human being. To write scenes of romantic love and passion, sexual tension, the agony of making hard life choices, I first had to know them. That’s why, for me at least, “write what you know” went from the worst piece of writing advice to the best.

I used to feel like a failure because I didn’t manage to complete my first novel ‘Secrets and Tea at Rosie Lee’s’ until I was in my early 40’s – why had I wasted so much time? Why hadn’t I had the skill or the talent to do it sooner? Then I realised that the novel I ended up writing, and loving, was a story that I couldn’t have written any sooner, no matter how hard I tried. The novel deals with motherhood, death, the fear of taking chances later in life – I couldn’t have written convincingly about any of those things before because I hadn’t experienced them, either directly or indirectly through other people in my life.

I didn’t become a mother until my early 30’s, was lucky enough to never have lost anyone close to me until I was 31. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying that you can’t write about being a mother unless you are one, or that you can’t write about death until you’ve experienced it first hand; I’m saying that I couldn’t. I didn’t have the necessary tools in my kit to write the novel I did until I reached a certain age. But that’s just me.

Write what you know is good advice as long as you understand what it really means. It’s not meant to restrict you – it doesn’t mean that because you work on a supermarket checkout that’s all your story should be about because that’s what you know – it’s much more than that. The way I view it is as a reminder to always try and be authentic in my writing.

Understand your characters and their motivations and then take them to places you’ve never been and experience it through their eyes. I’ve still never been to a South American port town or encountered a rakish flying ace but now I know that I could write that story if I wanted to because I know them; how they’re feeling, what they’re thinking. I understand them in a way I never could have at the tender age of fifteen. That’s what I think “Write what you know” really means in the end.

 

***

Author Bio

Jane has reached the age now where she no longer tells people her age! She’s old enough to legally be able to do everything and that’s all that matters. ‘Secrets & Tea at Rosie Lee’s’ is Jane’s debut novel. Born and brought up in London’s East End, she now lives in Lincolnshire with her family. Thankfully she recently discovered the joys of mail order pie, mash & liquor, so she can relive her youth anytime she feels like it! 

Although writing stories was something that Jane had always done, she never thought anyone would pay her to do it so she focussed on learning to act instead, figuring that this was a much more reliable way to earn a living. Sadly, her career as an actress was shortlived, actually it was non-existent, so she turned her attention to another reliable line of work – Cable Television! This was where Jane managed to finally get paid (badly!) doing something she enjoyed – writing. She began with scripts for a series all about Serial Killers (imaginatively entitled ‘Serial Killers’) and then moved on to a series of history documentaries. This series never saw the light of day in the UK but Jane has been informed that it used be very popular with insomniacs staying in hotels in the Far East. This may or may not be true. 

She is currently working on her second contemporary novel for Aria Fiction.

https://www.facebook.com/JaneLaceyCraneAuthor/

https://twitter.com/JaneLaceyCrane

https://www.instagram.com/janelaceycrane/

About Secrets And Tea At Rosie Lee’s

Welcome to Rosie Lee’s cafe in the heart of the East End – where there’s not an avocado, slice of sourdough or double-shot no-foam soy milk caramel latte on the menu!

Rosie-Lee’s owner Abby is a woman without a plan… and her beloved little cafe is a business with a serious lack of customers. The Rosie Lee’s fry-up is legendary, but cooked breakfasts alone – however perfectly sizzled the bacon – aren’t going to pay the bills.

Fast approaching forty and fighting a serious case of empty nest syndrome, Abby realises it’s not just her menu that needs a makeover. And when Jack Chance, her The One That Got Away, saunters through the cafe doors and back into her life things definitely look set to change…

Abby has always believed a cup of strong builders tea makes everything better, but Jack’s reappearance is a complication even the trusty sausage sarnie can’t resolve…

If you enjoy Debbie Johnson, Jill Mansell and Jane Fallon, you’ll love Secrets and Tea at Rosie Lee’s, a frank, funny, feel-good look at grown-up life and love – as it really happens!

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips