Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Writing about what you Know

Over the many years that I have been writing I can not remember the last time I wrote about something I knew. In my opinion if you write about something you know, you will have more knowledge to write a great paper. I will not be lying about what I am writing, and sitting there all day thinking about what to write. In stephen Kings book On Writing he says ''If your plumber write about plumbing''. I mean you can write more than just about plumbing. The plumber could write about trying out for a professional baseball team, but the whole time he is still a plumber talking about his life up till he tries out for the team.

If I was to choose something to write about it would be about football. I know everything there is to know about football. So I would not be lying about anything in my story. I would also put my own twist in my story about football. I would not just write about the rules. I would write about the friendships I gained in football, or the close games I played in that were so much fun.

In Stephen Kings book On Writing he talks about John Grisham's breakout novel, The firm. The story talks about a young lawyer who ends up working for the mafia. My point is that John Grisham wrote a story about a lawyer and he knew about lawyers. H was not lying about anything in his story he just put his only little twist on it.

6 comments:

  1. I completely agree with writing what you know. Many reasons support this too. First if you don't write about what you know about, aren't you just writing a bunch of crap. A bunch of stuff that no one can understand. Secondly writing about what you know gives the reader passion. Every piece of writing needs passion, no matter how big or how small. Every writer should write what they know all the time. Maybe some things would make more sense then.

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  2. True. when we write, we cannot focus on what relate to ourself. We need to think more about other people and other issues. Also,writing from another side of the view can make your essay look interesting and attractive.

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  3. As students I know we are expected to write on broader topics. Which like you said, this is hard to do and sometimes does feel like lying. I feel the same way about this. In most of my mandatory essays I usually get a topic I could care less about and know almost nothing about. However like most I find myself being able to pull teeth and beat around the bush enough to at least finish the task and look like I know what I am doing. To help myself get out of this kid rut and move on to being a more diverse writer I have tried learning more topics. By watching the news and reading more articles and books. I think by broadening my knowledge then maybe when given an off topic I can write more knowingly about it.

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  4. I completely agree with your blog Dakota when you talk about twisting your story up. I always put my little twists in my blogs, articles or papers that I'm preparing. To me when you put a twist in your writing, you are enhancing it to become a better piece overall. This blog shows how you really write your papers in any format that you choose. Although lying sometimes helps your paper I don't think you should because its false meaning.

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  5. It is much easier to write about what you know. When you write about what you know, the wordsand ideas just seem to flow out. the paper is more interesting and put together. Its also more enjoyable for the writer. The writer can easily make the paer truly their own.

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  6. I agree with you Dakota when you stated it's easier to write about what you know. It makes the paper more interesting to the audience when you can write about something your so passionate about. But also, writing about a something you don't know much about can also challenge your mind to start thinking more abroad. It's like a 50/50 thing.

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