Writing what you don't know

In your 2025 writing life, consider undoing the TRAUMA of the old adage

Happy almost 2025, readers, and welcome to the second official edition of “Only Ugly First Drafts,” the monthly writing prompt from Late to the Party. This month, I’ve been thinking about artifice and invention. Literary fiction, over the past decade or so, has come to spurn plot in favor of autofiction, which I’ve written about. Core to autofiction is the adage “write what you know.” I preach it, too. See also: my ode to Lynda Barry.

Writing what you know is a big part of writing well. You can invent a whole other world — a world of dragons and wizards and aliens — but at some point, you will likely have to explain to yourself what about this world is emotionally or intellectually fascinating to you. And that will probably mean drawing, in some form, on what you know — on your lived experience of the world.¹

But. Consider the possibility that the old advice to write [solely] what you know might send some people down the wrong path, not because it’s straight-up bad counsel, but because it’s insufficient.