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Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#1 Old 24th Nov 2007 at 2:04 AM
Default "Write ONLY from your own experiences"
To the mods: If this is in the wrong place, please kindly move it. Thank you!

Ever since highschool English, I have always been told when writing a play/story/musical: "Write only from your OWN experiences!"
But for some odd reason, this only happens once you pass ten or eleven. In Primary Schools, teachers are happy to let their children's imaginations flow any which way-they can write about flying kangaroos baking cakes for the poor in Africa and the teachers don't mind. :smurf: Of course, I have yet to meet a child who has seen a flying kangaroo that could bake cakes for poor African nations. Most likely, if the teacher likes it, they might get a gold star.
But once you hit eleven or twelve, if you wrote something like that, most likely you get this: :handbag: "An F!" (Okay, that might be somewhat over the top, but I'm a theatre student We can be pretty dramatic. )
So...once you hit that age, no more can you free your imagination and write of fantasy worlds where Australian marsupials bestow charity on another hot continent-you must write just from your own experiences.
This "just write from your own experiences" mindset affects not just storywriting, but also playwriting, including musicals.
I don't really agree with the statement, as it is too restricting on the imagination, and restricts creativity flow. For example, I believe that if you have a good enough imagination, and with the right research, you could write a good story/play/musical that is from a beggar's point of view without having to experience it firsthand. Besides, starving yourself just so you can now write 'from the experience of being a beggar', is not good for your health or for your work (it wouldn't work, because you would be constantly aware that you have a nice warm house that you can return to; you're not really homeless).
Moving on, I seriously doubt either that C.S. Lewis was innocently grabbing a coat from his wardrobe when he discovered Narnia beyond the wall.

1. How much truth is there in the statement "Write ONLY from your own experiences"?
2. Do you think it expands or restricts the imagination?
3. Do you have any fanfics or anything where you definitely didn't experience something the character is, but is still convincing? (Yes they can be The Sims 2 fanfics )
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#2 Old 24th Nov 2007 at 3:41 AM
Don't listen to them! Okay, well, maybe you have to listen to them to get a passing grade in school. But on the side, do the exact opposite! Let your creativity flow, put yourself in the beggar's shoes, imagine the hardships of being stuck in a downpour with no where to take shelter. If you like, switch roles the next day. Imagine being an heir to to the wealthiest man in the world! Everyone thinks you have it all, but are you really lonely inside?

This whole "from your own experiences" is balony. When your a kid that age, you really haven't experienced all that much. Even as a teenager, many think they know everything, I know I sure did. The World is huge, it goes far beyond the scope that any one person can personally experience. Besides, how dull and boring would this world be with out Fantasy Realms, and Sci-Fi movies?

I personally love the RP section here, because it's my chance to get out of my normal life for just a little while and pretend to be something else. I've been a carefree pirate, a old Hollywood has been, and currently a conniving Queen. It seems to me they're trying to stifle the creativity of young people, and it's a real shame.
Inventor
#3 Old 24th Nov 2007 at 4:49 AM
1. How much truth is there in the statement "Write ONLY from your own experiences"?
Who told you this b*llsh*t?? Urgh, I hate those kind of art-teachers that think they invented the wheel and bestow these crazy ideas upon their students. As a writing excercise, okay. But you can't limit ideas. With proper exploration and research you can write about everything you want. As long as it makes sense for the story you are trying to tell.

Well, sort of alike you I guess, I graduated in Fine Art last year. I have also worked as a costume and theatre designer for the past 8 years. And I write a lot, mostly short stories. Original and fanfic.

2. Do you think it expands or restricts the imagination?

Restricts, of course. You can't limit the paths of creativity.

3. Do you have any fanfics or anything where you definitely didn't experience something the character is, but is still convincing? (Yes they can be The Sims 2 fanfics [img]images/smilies/smile.gif[/img] )

Yes, I have written scenes and lines I couldn't have imagined before. Making your story convincing so that the reader will be intruiged and pulled in is I think the most important part of the puzzle when writing it. And the part that is most fun.
Lab Assistant
Original Poster
#4 Old 24th Nov 2007 at 7:41 AM
Thank you for your answers, which I both agree with. I'd been told this by countless teachers and lecturers and even my father. But it was my mother who encouraged me to expand my creativity-not restrict it to the experiences I've had.
Do you think there's anything you can not ever imagine, such as certain feelings and emotions?
I like to apply the "what if" theory that Stanislavsky put forth, and I use it a lot when creating characters and so forth. Being a theatre sort of person, I always put myself in my character's shoes and see how they would react to a situation or someone, or even a revelation by someone else to them.
Test Subject
#5 Old 24th Nov 2007 at 8:07 AM
"Write ONLY from your own experiences."

Ugh. I hate when teachers say that. I havn't experienced a lot in my life, so any paper I'd write based on my own experiences would be really drab. Besides, isn't it called "creative" arts? Isn't it important to use your imagination? In the real world mostly the only kind of books that are based only on the author's experience are biographys.
Instructor
#6 Old 24th Nov 2007 at 1:24 PM
I think most teachers offer this piece of advice because it is far easier, especially for the new writer, to create from material that is already familiar to them. However, you cannot always write from 'what you know', and if everyone did that, we wouldnt have some great pieces of literature or film as we do.

I spent the summer turning a screenplay written by a semi-famous actor friend of mine into a children's book for him... and trust me, the subject matter of the screenplay/book is nothing either of us would know from personal experience! I think it is best to take something you are somewhat familiar with and go from there. As a writer myself, I find that the stories/screenplays/manuscripts I have started based on my own personal experiences are easier to write than creating everything from 'scratch' so to speak, but that does not stop me from writing stuff I have never and could never experience.
Mad Poster
#7 Old 24th Nov 2007 at 3:06 PM
I think that the aforementioned statement is absolute crap. I enjoy using creative writing to explore topics, situations, and emotions that I haven't experienced. For example, I wrote a piece that can be found in the Creative Corner about a man whose love was unrequited so he killed himself, which obviously hasn't happened to me or I wouldn't be here. I like to use my writing to not only explore new topics, but to identify and see what those experiencing them are truly feeling. Writing from your own experiences limits you; I like to write to explore.

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#8 Old 24th Nov 2007 at 3:19 PM
I think you may be taking the recommendation too literally. It doesn't necessarily mean "write only things that have happened to you in your own life exactly" but to take what you know and expand on it. Especially when it comes to emotional situations - if you've never really been in love, writing a love story is going to be difficult to do and have it come across as realistic and believable. If you don't have any experience in forensic science, writing a crime drama will be hard for you. Doesn't mean any of it is impossible, but it takes a lot more research.

You don't have to have been a beggar to write from the perspective of one - but you would find it very hard to do so if you've never really truly been cold, if you've never slept on the ground, never really been hungry and alone and downtrodden and desperate - if you've always been comfortable and warm and happy (and some people have) then writing from that point of view is going to be very difficult for you to do and make it seem real.

You can take your own experiences and expand on them, changing the individuals and the circumstances but leaving the emotion and create something completely different - and it's still writing what you know. There's nothing stopping you from branching out here or there but understand that the core of your writing must be something that rings true and deep with you, or it will just come across as fluff. Of course writers don't always exactly their realm of expertise or purely autobiographical experiences - writing is about imagination, but if you begin growing that brainstorm from a true, real seed then you will be one step closer to accomplishing the same thing every writer is doing: writing the story of humanity and what it's like to be one of us. Stay true to yourself and you're on the right path.

(And I think this is a fine place for this - it's not really a debate, just a discussion.)

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Test Subject
#9 Old 24th Nov 2007 at 10:15 PM
Ehhh.....when I was in ninth grade my english teacher told us this (escept she said write what you know. Same thing, basicly.). But I personally have never agreed with it, mainly because Im the kind of person who likes to write because I can basicly make up my own little world, away from my own. Following what those people say would basicly just cancel out all inspiration I have for writing.

I think what HP said is true, it just makes the writing more realistic, if its something you know then its probably going to be more...well...interesting. I mean...I suppose if I wanted to I can make quite an interesting story based on my life, a troublemaking constantly bored girl who wants nothing more than her life to be just a little bit interesting. But that would bore me, because thats my life and..well...its boring >.<.

Yeah, so basicly I dont really agree with the statement. I guess it depends on the person, but for me, I would hate to do that. I like to write because its a decent output for my imagination, and seriously, my imagination challenges that of a four year old. If I were to write from my own experiences it would just be very...boring for me.
#10 Old 24th Nov 2007 at 11:35 PM
1. How much truth is there in the statement "Write ONLY from your own experiences"? I imagine if there was any truth to it, there would only be biographies written by more or less famous people on the bookshelves. Or, "blogging" would be considered literature. (?) Rather boring...
2. Do you think it expands or restricts the imagination? Obviously there would be no great novels at all, if people restricted themselves to their own experiences only. What about classes in creative writing? Its good to have some experience in order to understand what you're trying to describe, a character or a place or a feeling, but from that point it must be possible to let the imagination run freely. Its always good to know what your writing about, unless your reader will loose interest, or feel you're faking it. Research can replace experience to some degree. (Hysterical Paroxysms explains it so well in her thread)
3. Do you have any fanfics or anything where you definitely didn't experience something the character is, but is still convincing? (Yes they can be The Sims 2 fanfics ) Ive been writing a lot of short stories, exploring places and people I never met. It worked fine for my readers (not all that many, but anyway). I believe the subconscious plays a big part in writing, but knowing I don't always have all the facts, I make my stories happen in a dream-scape to create a surreal feeling. A trick, unless you want to "hunt" for experience all your life.(You will have them anyway, in the end). I think putting the story inside someone else's mind gives a lot of freedom, cause there is no way to tell what this person would have felt , had he/she been "real". If your good with your hands you're probably good at describing how things/objects feel and look. If your a talker/listener, your strength may be writing dialogs. The best way to get information that would otherwise be beyond you, is to observe people and situations, and use your intuition and whatever skill you have.(I guess just observing yourself, your family,friends or your thought-patterns can be quite interesting in the writing process, that is, things so familiar to you they may go unnoticed. Its not that hard to find material that way, and one knows more about that than anyone.) And, of course: read books, and write a lot to find your own "flow" (style, strength etc.)
#11 Old 25th Nov 2007 at 1:46 AM
[I'm sorry if this has been said, I'm just replying to the first post.]

I think it should be more of a "Write about what you know." Instead of experiences. I think a lot of really good writers write about a wide variety of things that they've never experienced, but they research heavily. And then if you want to bring up fantasy stories and things like, Harry Potter...JK Rowling has created that world so deeply that you believe it because there is nothing she hasn't thought of. I think teachers just don't want you to write about some thin imaginary place with no substance.

My two cents :P
Scholar
#12 Old 29th Nov 2007 at 4:26 AM
1. How much truth is there in the statement "Write ONLY from your own experiences"?

NONE! As a journalism student this just makes me cry. If we only ever wrote what we experienced where would we be? I'm sure JK Rowling's never gone to wizard school, and that Tolkien had never met a elf. If they only wrote what they knew we'd be missing out on so much. Whoever told you that is a moron and needs a :handbag:

2. Do you think it expands or restricts the imagination?


RESTRICTS! In so many ways it's not even funny.

3. Do you have any fanfics or anything where you definitely didn't experience something the character is, but is still convincing? (Yes they can be The Sims 2 fanfics )


I have certainly. As a journalism student I do things like that every day. It's my job. And as an avid RPG player and anime fan I've written my fair share of stuff. I've played a Southern Belle, a secretary, a supergirl with time powers, an ancient greek pythoness, and a priestess of Suzaku. Last time I looked I was an ordinary girl from Canada. Only writing what you know limits you in so many ways. That's why we have imaginations, so that we can picture what things will be like.

Now I'll hush because otherwise I'll go on all day!

You can call me Robyn, tis my name after all
SixWordStories
#13 Old 29th Nov 2007 at 9:17 AM
My interpretation of Write from your own experience: (not necessary correct, writing is a creative process)

It all depends on what you want to write, you cannot write from your own experience if you are writing a mars exploration script, see, well unless you've been there. But if you have been to Sahara before, you write from your own experience of how the heat is in the Sahara and maybe multiply that by 10 to explain the heat on Mars. I think.

Because only when you have experience what a situation is like can you then produce a descriptive and narrative that is convincing to your audience.

For instant I cannot write a story about something that happens in the US because then I would not know what time the shop usually close, what color the sky looks like, what the people usually react to things that happens, do on-lookers gathers if there's an accident or do they quickly run away in fear they might have to lift a hand to help, or do they quickly lend a helping hand. thing that I cannot know of if I were to write a story that has to do with any other city than the one I am staying in. your audience will instantly indentify your fault in the descriptions, is my guess, because that's what people do, find faults with you.

I can probably write what I think happen in the US from an outsider's viewpoint, and that would be from my experience as well. my experience as an outsiders and what this outsider thinks.

you have to apply that to make it work your way.

The way to touch your audience is to make them believe what you write, and the best way to do it is strike their empathy chord.
Field Researcher
#14 Old 29th Nov 2007 at 11:48 AM
My take on writing from your own experiences, using the original example:

Have you seen a bird fly?
Have you seen a kangaroo?
Have you baked a cake or seen someone do so? Or something similar to a cake (brownies, cookies, etc)?
Do you have some idea (from textbooks, documentaries, actual travel, etc) about what Africa is like in a least one region?
Done volunteer work? Seen a food kitchen? Or any of a myriad of other options related to feeding the poor?

If you can answer yes to most of those questions then you can write about flying kangaroos baking cakes for the poor in Africa from your own experience.

I think if a good proportion of what you write draws from your experience and actual knowledge it does make your writing more believable.

A personal example, I have gotten a surprising amount of compliments on how well I wrote a hangover scene in a Digimon fanfic, writing in first person present tense, but I have never had a hangover (it's genetic). To write it I basically pasted together information and jokes I'd heard about hangovers with my own experience with being just flat out ill.

So the questions:
1. It's a good guideline, and, with a little creativity you can cover almost any situation, at least partially, from something in your experience. But it is only a guideline, not a hard and fast rule. I think it may get over emphasized for 'new' writers reaching, or of, an age to have a decent pool of experience to start reining them in from the completely wild flights of fancy that children write, which are cute, but rarely something an adult actually wants to read. The individual writer then needs to find a happy median between the two. It can also be an excuse for going out and finding new experiences!
2. If you approach the concept of utilizing your own experience to improve your writing with an open mind it can expand your creative limits.
3. I don't think I've written anything completely outside my experience that was worthy of note. Probably because I've tended to do the excuse thing...

Writing from your own experience will only limit you if you let it do so!

"Segregate the sinful sexes..." "Wait, how many sexes are there?" "Two." "It's not enough I say, go out and order some more."
Test Subject
#15 Old 29th Nov 2007 at 11:05 PM
My life is very boring. And when I write I tend to write about murder, the supernatural, blood and horror with a hint of sarcasm. Quite a far cry from my own experiences. I think you can use your life as an influence but you shouldn't be restricted by it. But if you are doing serious writing then make sure you reserch what you're writing about so that you don't go on and on with nonsence.

~Love is blind, i know this because you cant see me!~
#16 Old 30th Nov 2007 at 1:15 AM
I disagree with the statements "Write only from your own experiences," and "Write what you know," definitely. One of my biggest pet peeves is autobiographical fiction. Whenever I can tell the author is just ranting about his/her own life, it annoys the heck out of me.

But at the same time, it's very important to know what you write. I knew a well-off girl in elementary school who once wrote a story about a homeless orphan on the streets of New York. Quite an imagination, eh? Stuff like that strikes me as a bit pretentious. (The little author was only a kid, but I've noticed professional authors doing the same thing, writing about subjects where they have no idea what they're talking about!) Research is a good thing.
Lab Assistant
#17 Old 30th Nov 2007 at 6:39 AM
I enjoyed reading everyone's opinion on this subject -- it can be a difficult one for a beginning (or experienced) writer to sort out. My job is to help people communicate better, both in speech and in writing, and although I'm not a teacher I do co-teach a middle school language arts class. So with that in mind, I thought I'd add a middle school teacher's (eek! no, I'm not really!) perspective to this discussion.

1) Re-read Hysterical Paroxysm's and Thothep's posts. I can't say what they've already said any better.

2) I truly feel that learning to write based on your own experience, as the above posters have described it, will enhance your creativity skills. Clearly, it requires creativity to imagine flying kangaroos who are culinarily and charitably inclined. However, it requires a more sophisticated and perhaps more crucial form of creativity to imagine what if? to an ordinary everyday situation. For example, what if I got the lead in the school play? What if that guy I really like asks me out? What if I win the lottery? What if I forget my lines during my next audition? How would my life change? How would my fictional characters change and develop? This is the heart of all great fiction, whether in a fantasy setting or more based in reality. This will lay the groundwork for you to take any setting -- Mars, Narnia, 20,000 leagues under the sea -- and make it truly interesting. What if, instead of Peter, Lucy, Edmund, and Susan (did I get the names right?) discovering the wardrobe, it had been you? What would you have done differently? Okay, then, what would your English teacher have done in that situation? Okay, what would Harry Potter have done? Learning to take experiences, feelings, and perspectives with which you can identify and put them in different, more interesting settings, is what makes writing interesting. That's why teachers are tired of reading about flying kangaroos -- because a first or second grader writes with little to no perspective or experience for the reader to grasp on to. And those same what if? skills, properly developed, will enrich your own life by opening up your horizons. So keep being creative and learn to think of all the possible angles of any situation you experience.

3) You mentioned research, and I cannot over-emphasize how important that is. I was reading a story I enjoyed very much, when suddenly the character was in a coma. I have worked with people who were in comas and people who were in the process of coming out of them. My training and experiences give me first-hand knowledge about the memory and communication deficits of people with traumatic brain injury. I had been really enjoying this story about a high school student, written by a high school student, despite the fact that I am almost 20 years older than both the character and the writer. She really understood what high school students are going through. As soon as that character changed from being a just high school student to being a high school student with a traumatic brain injury, she lost me. It took me several chapters to get back into the story, because I've seen people in that exact situation and that's not what they look like. She was a good enough writer that she brought me back, but trust me, most people aren't going to be willing to stick around long enough once the interest is gone. The saddest part is, if you don't know the situation you may never know where it is you are alienating your readers. So, you're right, research -- whether from books, internet, or even better personal interviews -- is crucial to the level of writing you are aiming for.

Hang in there and never turn your back on creativity!
Test Subject
#18 Old 7th Dec 2007 at 11:49 AM
Generally I find that its easiest to write about what you know. I guess its easier to relate what you know to your own personal experience. That said, if you're dealing with people of any kind in writing, its possible to relate your own humanity to your characters humanity - but by no degree is everyone an excellent creative writer. So, I guess its kind of relative to your level of skill...
Test Subject
#19 Old 7th Dec 2007 at 6:10 PM
Well one thing I do find useful is using people I know to build characters on. I had a very religious childminder as a child and I used her to create a very religious character in my story. My little six year old brother is fantastic for characters because he is naughty, sweet and terribley funny so I often have child characters quote him. I guess you can even write fantasy novels and still have aspects of people you know and experiences you've had. You can just use them as a base.

~Love is blind, i know this because you cant see me!~
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