BlackHippyChick Day: Write What You Know
Added 2024-10-10 14:36:29 +0000 UTCThe first thing your English teacher probably taught you about writing in high school is “write what you know.” It’s an adage that you’ll return to no matter how far you evolve or how much you grow. Neil Gaiman said it best when he said, “Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that—but you are the only you.”
Gaiman has become one of the most powerful folklore writers of the contemporary age. He often borrows characters from old myths and legends to populate his stories. He’s achieved so much this way that he revolutionised graphic novels for a new generation of readers. Before Gaiman, comics were <ptuey> the vestige of a lazy mind, but Gaiman had a special way with them. He could achieve greatness with them, so that’s exactly what he did. That’s how the lazy old comic book began winning literary awards.
Gaiman decided to be Gaiman, and it worked.
The best way for you to achieve greatness is to find out what makes you unique. What kind of stories have you lived through? What kind of person has life turned you into? What makes you special? Self-discovery is the first step to writing what you know, but you should go beyond that. Write what drags your heart out your chest. Write what clogs up your throat. Write what makes you feel happy. Write what fascinates you. The “you” behind all those things will leak out of your pen and into your readers' hearts.
Write you because it’s the only thing nobody else can do.
