What You Know

Hemingway famously said, to aspiring writers everywhere, write what you know. The theory, I suppose, is that writing what is familiar will lead to a seamless story that won't distract an informed reader with incorrect details. If your reader collects old typewriters, and your hero has stumbled on the Case of the Missing Underwood from 1874, that reader is going to shake her head and put the book down out of annoyance. (The first Underwood was manufactured in 1896, and the Underwood No. 1 had Wagner on the back, as the designer of the machine.)

I didn't know that ten minutes ago, and that leads me to the point of this post. If I only write what I know, my books would be unutterably boring.

I always told my students: if you don't know, look it up.

* * *

My first novel, In the Shadow of Mr. Lincoln, is set in my home town. Today it's called Macungie, Pennsylvania, but in 1860 it was known as Millerstown. And when I started the novel, that was about the extent of my knowledge.

I researched for three years, on and off while in college, before I started writing. I used references from the local history shelf at the library, met with historians, and read read read. I learned a man's net worth was determined by the size of his barn. The area immediately around Millerstown had three working grist mills. Pigs were a lucrative cash crop.

And on and on.

I didn't know everything I needed to know when I began, and not everything I learned ended up in the book, but the research was necessary for me to immerse myself in that world. My historical YA novel required world-building just as a fantasy novel does, except that I wanted to stick to fact as much a possible. Immersing myself in that world allowed me to describe it to my readers so they, too, could hear the ripple of Swabia Creek as the willows danced on the water, smell the clinging, acrid smoke of the battlefield, and feel the despair as Bridget struggled to bring her baby into the world.

Write what you know? Sure. But that doesn't mean you always knew, only that you took the time to learn.