Write About What You Care About!
Today’s post is a fairly simple reminder of one crucial ingredient for a winning story. While it’s possible to write a technically proficient story that you have little feeling for, the really successful ones are those in which you invest yourself. The stories that readers remember are the ones that you have shown passion and attention to detail. Laziness won’t creep in as easily to a story that is about what you care about.
It can be a very tricky road to traverse when you are choosing topics for your new story. Maybe you have a good sense of what your character is, but not what she will be doing or what sort of world she will inhabit. If you give her a job in a law firm, for example, and have her at the firm a lot but don’t care anything about being a lawyer, this lack of interest will show up in your writing. You may say to yourself, “Oh, I can just plant a few details I got from the internet”, but readers are more discerning than you think. They’ll be able to tell if you are invested in the details you are sowing your story with.
That is one way to think about good, invested details versus neutral, thoughtless ones. Neutral details are like burying stones in a field: they don’t do anything. They don’t connect to the surrounding landscape or take or give. They don’t change the surroundings or enrich them in any way. Planting a detail that you care about and that comes from this feeling, by contrast, is like planting a seed. It will continue to grow and inform the written world around it, enriching every aspect of the universe you’ve created. It will engage in a dialogue with other details of the story.
I want to make very clear that I am not saying, “Write what you know.” That is sometimes true, but is more limiting than is necessary. If you really care about something, a combination of research and imagination is enough to make it come to life. But you have to care about it in a personal way. The personal in a story is what, oddly enough, makes it universal.
Dear BLH,
So, if I care about something, then I will be able to be convincing enough with detail and care in the matters than if I know it? That makes sense. I could know a lot about something, but then hate it and now care to place appropriate or crucial details because of my hatred. Plus, if you care about something, then you would take time to learn about it. Thanks, this really helped.
~Hannah
Thank you! This post is so validating for me. Now, if someone complains that I shouldn’t be writing in such detail about things I don’t personally know, I will send them here. I am writing about something I care very much about but have very little experience with, so I’ve spent hours upon hours trying to learn about that subject.
Great blog and oh so true. I loved the burying-a-stone-in-a-field metaphor.
Good to hear such a variety of ideas for the post on ingredient for a winning story. Thanks for sharing such useful information and for the post.
I think this also comes into play when writing a novel. With a long project, if you don’t write about something you care about, you run the risk of getting bored through all the drafts it takes to get a publishable manuscript written. Great post.
Oddly, this post addresses my main problem when writing. I honestly don’t care about much.
Constant visitors to this site may have read my comment about having a disastrous childhood. It trained me never to connect & never to care.
I did years of therapy, ten of one-on-one plus a year and a half of group. Still, my mind goes blank when trying to list things I care about “passionately!” It feels odd to have trained myself to disconnect instantly.
Also, writing is all about noticing & remembering small details of people’s behavior. I never recall anything, at least, not about people.
I never even remember books or movies about people. My partner will swear we saw a film together a year ago, but it’s all new to me. I’m screaming at zombies and he’s yawning…
(apparently, I don’t recall anything about zombies, either.)
People often say, “You should write about your horrible childhood. It would help others!”
No way. I spent all those years in therapy (and $50K ) just to forget about it!
Oh well. I guess I should try detective fiction since that’s what I’ve come to read most. Plus, there is a pretty low bar in that genre if the bestsellers are any indication.
Seriously, is there anyone else out there with my problem–a basic nihilism when confronted with the advice: “write what you’re PASSIONATE about?”
Curious in El Cerrito (Spanish for “The Cerrito”)