From the Center – Page 11 – Reflections from W&M's Writing and Communication Center

November 8, 2017

Write What You Know

Writing what we know is not writing what has happened to us, but rather writing through the lens of what has happened to us.

A lot of writing advice is really useful — “show, don’t tell”, “kill your darlings”, and “write every day” have been pretty clear and reliable to me. However, one piece of writing advice that never failed to confuse me was “write what you know.” This convenient phrase sounds easy in the moment, whether you read it from a list of writing tips or a mentor urges you onward with an inspiring tone.

“Ah,” you think. “Of course. Write what I know — what else would I write?”

It’s not until you’re sitting in front of a blank screen, the blinking cursor taunting you, that you realize how terribly unclear this advice is. The barrage of questions starts:

What do I know? Do I write about my life? Do I write about the books and poetry I’ve read? Have I read the right authors? Do I know enough about my subject? Do I even know anything?

The doubt starts to creep in. Writers have complicated, full lives, right? They’re artists, so they have to be tortured, or worldly. I have so much life I haven’t lived! What do I possibly have to offer?

Over time, I have come to find that this deceptively simple saying is pretty misleading. For me, it has more to do with perspective. Writing what we know is not writing what has happened to us, but rather writing through the lens of what has happened to us. In other words, we write with the eyes through which we see the world.

The best way I can illustrate this is to have you picture a simple scene: a horse runs through a field.

Picture it. Really picture it, every last detail, like you are living it right there and now. Got it?

Here’s what I see: A black horse gallops through a field of overgrown and wild grass. The sunlight ripples on it like on the vast ocean. It’s distant and yet the earth vibrates as it thunders past, the center of everything. Then it’s gone.

I’m willing to bet that’s not what you saw, because that’s not what you know. The colors of that (very short) story were impermanence and vastness and darkness and light. The colors of your story were likely something different, but beautiful nevertheless.

I hope that makes “write what you know” a little clearer. If not, don’t be afraid to write a little of what you don’t know, just as long as you’re writing something.

Image: images.unsplash.com/photo

September 13, 2017

Review: Tiny Beautiful Things

“You have to be kind. You have to give it all you got. You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth. But that’s all.”

strayed_bookcover In Tiny Beautiful Things, Cheryl Strayed provides one of the most elegant, sweepingly empathetic perspectives on life and love that I have ever read. Whether she is reflecting on writer’s block, the stages of grief, or marriage jitters, her words are drawn directly from her wealth of hard-earned wisdom and unconditional compassion. I stayed up long hours into the night with this book over winter break, rereading sentence after beautiful sentence. Each page gripped me as a reader and inspired me as a writer.

The book is a collection of letters Strayed has received throughout her time as “Sugar,” an advice columnist for therumpus.net. In response to a mother grieving her miscarried daughter, she recounts her experience as a youth advocate for a group of struggling preteen girls. She gives her letter-writer the same advice her students received: their circumstances will not become any less painful, so to escape it, they will have to “reach.”

Strayed answers many of the letters in this way; her personal anecdotes create an instant bond of lived experience that underlies her responses. What makes her advice so poignant is that rather than directly answering her readers’ questions, she contextualizes them. She reminds a young, insecure writer not to expect instant success. She tells a hesitant boyfriend that the terms of “I love you” can change. By broadening her readers’ scope of consideration, Strayed empowers them to see their emotions as valid. With the acceptance of that simple thought, so much is possible.

Two of my friends and fellow WRC consultants recommended Tiny Beautiful Things to me, and I’m so grateful that this book appeared in my life during college. In an environment that always demands that we have the “right” answers–whether on Scantrons or in interviews–Strayed’s radical empathy reminds me that they don’t exist. There will never be a time where we become objectively enough: a good enough writer, student, friend. Instead, we can only keep trying. We can keep reaching out to the people around us and challenging ourselves to higher levels of authenticity. So long as we “give it all [we] got,” we are more than enough.

Check out the book and Strayed’s column in the links below; you owe it to yourself.

Tiny Beautiful Things

Dear Sugar Column

May 19, 2017June 24, 2018

Writing Across the Disciplines

books As a business major, I didn’t think writing would come up that often in my major-specific classwork. Instead, I had pictured lots of class participation, teamwork, and presentations (all of which do occur). But I’ve had to write a few papers every semester as well, to analyze different industries and companies. And I’ve learned that even presentations are a form of communication which can be prepared in advance and outlined to ensure clarity. Writing is how we convey that we’ve done the research, formulated ideas, and created a game plan or strategy on how to improve the situation we face.

It makes sense why writing would be prominent in classes that don’t seem literature focused. Writing allows the transfer of knowledge and it’s essentially your thoughts and opinions captured on a page. No matter what you’re studying, writing can help exemplify your point and help others know that you understand the subject. Communication becomes tangible in the written form.

One of the most important skills I’ve developed during my time at college has definitely been my writing. Whether I’m taking a class within an English/writing focused department or not, written communication comes up regardless. My friends in science-based majors comb through research papers and academic journals to help spread knowledge acquired from experiments and studies. My friends majoring in public policy and government are active readers and writers, for the purpose of disseminating information and keeping up with the news through journalism.

One way to develop this skill is to not overthink it. At the writing center, one of the biggest things we encourage is simply engaging with the content – this most importantly involves talking about it. Once you start vocalizing your ideas, it becomes easier to transfer them to paper to later organize or revise.

Writing is universal – since its invention, it has carried civilization forward by allowing each generation to learn from the last. Across our schoolwork, it allows us to be more critical with our course material and facilitate the transfer of knowledge between us as students, our professors, and anyone else we wish to share with. I’ve always loved how writing helps me communicate across time and across subjects – it helps me keep in mind there’s always something to learn and to share.

Shilpa Garg, 2017