Control: How to Write About What You Don’t Know Well

Daniel Trump
Jul 28, 2017 · 3 min read

I, Dalton Lewis, sit in my room. I have half a dozen soda cans sitting there, and the remains of soup: Creamy Chicken Noodle. I don’t have any plans today. Nothing will happen today of note. I won’t accomplish anything wonderful. It’s just a day.

In fiction this would never happen. Events happen at a breakneck speed. They happen like crazy. Someone gets murdered. Another person gets angry, super angry, and develops rage powers. They discover that the villain is a family member. The enraged protagonist fights his forces in an escalating series of encounters, ending in a huge battle.

In real life, I have a blog to write. I talked to someone on the phone for a few minutes. I check if Terry is doing his podcast tonight. He isn’t. I eat dinner. We have pork tenderloin and potatoes with butter and carrots and half a banana with peanut butter. I check facebook and see a recipe for meatballs stuffed in buns. I try to talk to Finnegan, but no dice: he is with his kids until later.

In fiction a girl has been murdered. (There’s a lot of murder in fiction.) A young female protagonist is insanely beautiful, talented, and is in love with the killer. She has to evade several attempts at her life while trying to come up with the courage to turn him in. It ends in a dramatic standoff at the airport.

In real life I am wondering about ordering Papa Johns. Ahh, Papa Johns. Delicious.

Here’s the thing: make the second one reflect the first one. If it is elevated, fine. Make the fiction reflect reality in a more interesting way. Do research. Write. I know that most of you live normal lives. I also know that most of you write fantastic lives in which something amazing or special happens. How does one write that effectively?

Write. Read. Do the reading. Do some looking up of facts. Try to ascertain how this will work. Recreate the scene. Plan. I don’t always plan what I write, but I know that my work is stronger when I have coherency and everything fits together.

Think about literature a little bit. Consider adding irony and deception and surprises and symbolism to the story. It will elevate your story. I, Dalton Lewis, faithful blogger, writer of the multiple copy-selling Lovers Gone, can tell you that writing is hard. It’s difficult. One needs to consider the audience. They want something to happen. They want to hear that someone is dead — true, plenty of people are dead, in real life and in fiction — and how those people died. (People around me have died of suicide, standoffs with the police, running away from the police, old age, heart attack, Alzheimer’s related breakdowns, and so on. Now you know.)

Write about the problems of your life in a symbolic or metaphorical way. If you’re angry about finances, write about a thief who steals people life’s savings and murders them with a butcher knife, and have a poor protagonist. Want to lose weight? Write a comedy about a superhero struggling with weight issues. Guaranteed hit.

Write about what you know while turning it into a metaphor. Use the metaphor to explore facets of life you don’t know as well. And for the love of god, don’t butcher your family and eat them. Write about a character who does. You’ll be more popular.

Thanks, and take care, friends.

Daniel Trump

Written by

Daniel Trump wrote the slasher/horror epic Impressions of Suburbia. Buying it is the way he makes money for his writing. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RPXPQPC

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