Write What You Know? by Jana Richards

Recently, I’ve been rewriting TAKE A CHANCE ON ME, a book that I first self-published back in 2018. For marketing reasons, I’m changing it from a steamy contemporary romance to a sweet romance. The process was a little more difficult than I thought it would be – but that’s a story for another day. I’ll tell you about the results in the coming months. 

What I’ve been reminded of as I reread this book is how much of own life experiences I put into my stories. I suppose it’s inevitable to “write what you know”. Though the characters in this particular book and others are very different from me and have different experiences, some of the things that happened to them also happened to me.

The dog in this story is based on my beloved dog Lou. Though Stanley is a boy and a pure-bred pug, and Lou was a female pug/terrier cross, a lot of Lou’s attitude is expressed through Stanley. Like Lou, Stanley is stubborn. SO stubborn. If Lou decided she no longer wanted to walk, she would sit her bum down in the middle of the street, and no amount of cajoling could get her to move. Also like Lou, Stanley loves to eat. I always said Lou never met a meal she didn’t like, and Stanley is exactly the same. Despite Lou’s love of food, she had a surprisingly delicate stomach. I gave Stanley her need to be fed one-third of cup of kibble three times a day at exactly the same times. Heaven help you if you missed one of Lou’s feedings because her stomach would rebel and she’d throw up. Despite all her quirks, I miss Lou fiercely.

Lou hated when I dressed her up! We lost her in January 2020.

This isn’t the first time I’ve used a real dog as the inspiration for a dog in one of my books. In CHILL OUT, for instance, the English mastiff Spike was modeled after my colleague’s dog Indy, who was also a mastiff. She used to come to work with my colleague almost every day and she was the sweetest dog you’d ever want to meet. Like Spike, Indy was of considerable size and often drooled, but had a great disposition. They don’t call mastiffs gentle giants for nothing. 

Indigo or Indy for short. She was a sweet girl.

I’ve written a couple of books set during or shortly after the second World War. My interest in WW2 history goes back a long way. Ever since I can remember, I knew my dad was a WW2 veteran and had spent time in a German prisoner of war camp after being captured a few days after D-Day. I’ve been curious about events of the war ever since. In the future, I’d like to write more stories about the war. Actually, it would be more accurate to say I want to write about the affect the war had on the people who lived it. I believe WW2 still has an affect on people today. Unfortunately, they don’t understand the war. They have no idea what real oppression is, and they don’t know how hurtful it is when they use symbols from the war for their own purposes.

But I digress.

The characters in FLAWLESS are French Resistance operatives. This was not a case of write what you know!

In TAKE A CHANCE ON ME, I used the things I remembered from my mother’s heart attack. Things like the waiting room in the Cardiac Intensive Care unit where you had to use a special phone in the waiting room to ask for admittance to the unit. I made each room in the unit have a sliding glass door just like the glass door to my mother’s room. I made Darcy face having to place a Do Not Resuscitate order on her loved one’s chart because that was what we were immediately faced with. 

Like my character Darcy’s loved one, my mother survived that heart attack and was subjected to physical therapy to help her walk again. It is not fun to see someone you love struggle, even when you know it’s the best thing for them. 

Working on this book again brought back all kinds of memories. Though I bring many of my own memories and experiences to my writing, I can’t count on them exclusively. After all, I only know what’s it’s like to be me in this particular period in time. But I can bring empathy, imagination and research to my stories to give my characters occupations, families, personalities and life experiences much different from my own. 

They say to write what you know, and that may be true, to a point. I say write what you know, and then research, research, research the rest! 


Comments

  1. What a great post. If we do this part, "After all, I only know what’s it’s like to be me in this particular period in time," the empathy will show through, won't it? Thanks for sharing, Jana.

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    1. Thanks Liz. I absolutely believe a writer has to feel real empathy for the situations the characters find themselves in, or it won't ring true. You really have to put yourself in their shoes. That's where imagination and research come in.

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  2. Good post, Jana! We do only know what our own life experience is and without exhaustive research, it's hard to write other lives. That said, no matter what we write, we do always bring our experience to the story. Thank you!

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  3. That is so true, Nan. I know I bring my world-view to my characters; I think that's inevitable. But for experiences I've never had and places I've never been, research, research, research!

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  4. This manuscript is sure to shine, Jana. Heartfelt emotions always show in the writing. Can't wait to read this one!

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    1. Thanks Janie. Yes, I agree that those emotions we feel deeply truly shine in our writing.

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  5. Love this! I just gave my hero the same neck crater that I have and the same back story for it. LOL

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  6. I understand that! I've used little bits of my life in many of my books. Afterall, what else do I know?

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