“Write What You Know” is Not Good Writing Advice | Literary Hub

For most beginning fiction writers, the phrase Write What You Know sounds like advice to produce thinly veiled autobiography. That's what I heard in those four words, and judging from what many of my MFA classmates churned out back in the day, it's what they heard, too. It makes perfect sense; what subject could you know better than yourself? The bitter realization that comes later - if you're lucky - is that just because something happened in real life does not necessarily mean it will work in a story. Let me repeat that. Something that happened in real life will not necessarily work in a story.