Write What You Don't Know

By Guest Blogger Louise Ure

You know the old maxim, “Write what you know?” I say, “Horseshit.”

There are lots of writers who make it up from the whole cloth. Michael Connelly was never a lawyer driving around in a Lincoln-sized office. John Irving never lost his hand to a caged lion at the circus. And as far as I know, Lee Child never killed anybody.

Hell, Homer was probably a stay-at-home dad, and J. K. Rowling has never done a magic trick in her life.

If I were to write about what I know, it would be a story about advertising agencies, how to make great tacos, and smoking too much. Short tempers in traffic, overweight golden retrievers and killing any plant that isn’t approved by the California Highway Department for planting in the medians.

And who wants to read that?

There are some writers whose histories are so fascinating that just listening in on their lunch orders at Subway would be fodder for a story. Barbara Seranella and her outlaw past. Zoe Sharp and her motorcycle racing. Barry Eisler’s shady CIA history.


Cornelia Read can lift any page from her diary and create a book from it.

And there are other fine writers who have taken the guts of the world they know – journalism, teaching, business – and created a universe where adventures abound. Karen Olson, for example, with her reporter-protagonist Annie Seymour, or Patricia Smiley, who can make even the most innocent business transaction fraught with menace. Elaine Flinn brought murder to the antiques biz in tiny, charming Carmel. Gillian Roberts parlayed her years teaching high school in Philadelphia into a thirteen or fourteen book series, and proved that association with teacher Amanda Pepper could be just as lethal as any day spent with Jessica Fletcher.

If I were to try that, you’d have the story of an Account Director in an ad agency wondering how she was going to motivate the Creative Director to try for one more campaign, since the client put his foot through the last storyboard. Yawn.
If you’re a taxidermist, do you love reading fiction about your field? Or do you avoid it?

I dislike reading about my own world, and I think I’d hate writing about it even more. (I did read two advertising agency mysteries written by former colleagues, and had to struggle to find something nice to say about them. If they got the facts right, the story was boring. If they got them wrong, it just sounded silly.)


In my first book, FORCING AMARYLLIS, I wrote about a jury consultant put in the unenviable position of representing a man she thought might be the person who attacked her sister. And I didn’t know a damn thing about jury consulting.

But that’s where the fun began. I read voraciously, interviewed lawyers who had used jury consultants and analyzed every trial transcript I could get my hands on. I haunted the corridors at the Criminal Courts Building in San Francisco, eavesdropped on lawyers’ conversations after the verdicts were read, and practically memorized entire chapters of “Stack & Sway: The New Science of Jury Consulting.”

But the best research was conducted on a drunken Thursday afternoon with Beth and Idgi, two local jury consultants, over cassoulet and a bottle of good Medoc at Le Central, downtown. They had started out as idealists, wanting to ensure that every man would be guaranteed a jury of his peers. That never again would we see the kind of jury stacking that went on during the trials of anti-war protestors Daniel and Philip Berrigan during the Viet Nam era.

And they are still idealists; even after the smearing their profession took in the O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson trials. It’s not “the best jury money can buy” for these two; it’s “leveling the playing field.” Although we all agreed that the field would not truly be level until the investigative services, the jury consultants and the expert witnesses are equally available to everyone, not just the Robert Blakes of the world.

The stories got better as the afternoon (and the wine) wore on. Stories about the black teenager – more girl than woman – facing an adult murder charge. Stories about the lawyer who had his wife second-guess the jury consultants’ decisions from her seat in the first row. Stories about the case they lost that will never leave them.

The stories were important. And it was so much more fun than writing about advertising.

In the book I just finished, THE FAULT TREE, the protagonist is a blind, female auto mechanic. I am not blind. And while I’m a dab hand at minor car repairs, I also have AAA on speed dial. By the time that research for the book was done, I could do a tune up in thirty minutes with my eyes closed and I’ve now filed my nails into the shape of both regular and Phillips’ head screwdrivers.The book I’m working on now features a twenty-four year old woman who is both a body builder and a compulsive liar. Well, at least I’ve got one thing in common with her.

My advice to aspiring writers? Don’t limit yourself to what you know. Write about what interests you, even if you know nothing about it at all.

In fact, even better advice: Write about what you’re afraid of.

What about you? What’s that thing that so interests or terrifies you that you have to write about it?

Louise Ure is the author of FORCING AMARYLLIS, a 2005 release from Mysterious Press, which has just been nominated for a Shamus Award for Best First Novel. Visit her website at: www.louiseure.com