Don't write what you know or what you think readers want...

I am getting near the end of the first draft of my sixth novel, and boy am I getting excited.

I have known how this book was going to finish right from the start. The ending was the idea that sparked the whole book, and I have been writing towards that ending, chapter by chapter.

I’m sure there are elements within the story that you could point at and say “look, there you are, that’s your lived experience”. Sure. The book is grounded by the life that has shaped me and given me my perspective on the world, to a degree.

But wouldn’t it be boring if I just wrote what I knew? Do you really want a story about a middle-class woman from the south of England who has raised two boys and become a writer?

I’m a little more interesting than that: the boys have different dads, and I also have three stepchildren. I was a massage therapist and fitness instructor, and I have a first-class degree in zoology. I’ve slipped some discs and had a few hernia operations. I’m divorced and not in a rush to remarry. My favourite colour is yellow.

Are you bored yet?

Not exactly a Booker Prize-winning plot. Certainly not a page-turning thriller!

So, I don’t write what I know.

The book I am currently penning, pantsing my way through, to be more precise, is a speculative psychological thriller. At times it dabbles in horror. The thread that keeps it alive is the depth of my protagonist, her emotional journey—the one I hope you'll become so invested in that you won't be able to reach the finish fast enough.

I don’t write books that are easy to stomach. I want to push you, my reader, way beyond the limits of your comfort zone. I want you to question your own moral compass, put yourself in my protagonist’s position, and most importantly, I want you to feel a whole smorgasbord of emotions on route to the shocking finale.

It will be shocking.

That final part has sat quietly in the back of my mind for three months now, growing in confidence and intensity as I have developed my character, built her a solid family situation and put her through some incredible challenges.

I cannot tell you how intense my anticipation is for the ending. Not to be done with my story , but to write the last part, to reach the peak of my character’s journey.

Her name is Rowan, by the way. Think Marilyn Monroe, with a husband, two sons, and a best friend called Cerys. A choice in her past will make you want to have a long debate with a friend, and the decision she makes, well, its consequences are far-reaching and devastating. For all of them.

The finish is not a twist in the traditional sense; it is an unveiling - one you will not have foreseen, but will realise you have been walking towards all along (walking in the literary sense, of course 😉).

I am on several Facebook groups for writers and readers. Often in the writer chats, people want to write what sells; they ask what readers like to read, whether they prefer a twist at the end of a thriller or several throughout. What are their triggers? What will make them DNF? (did not finish)

It is a fool’s game, trying to decipher what will and won’t become a bestseller. Readers are all individuals who will respond to a story differently. What one loves, another loathes. What one appreciates, another won’t even notice.

Trying to please someone else will never work. In all walks of life. In all careers. In everything.

People-pleasing is a dangerous habit for a writer.

Write as you should live. For yourself. To please yourself. To feel excited and driven.

To be authentically you.

Actually, scrap that, the ‘authentically you’ part. It’s rubbish. What does that even mean? Is there just one simple version of you that is wholly authentic?

There are many me’s. The mum, the partner, the lover, the sister, the daughter, the friend, the walker, the gym-obsessed fitness fanatic, the ice-cream-loving movie buff, the writer, the organiser. Some days I can be all of these.

Authentic is to be real, to be exactly what it claims to be.

I don’t know what I am. A mixture of all of the above, but those are just the outward parts. Inside there is sooooooo much more. For all of the things I listed, there is a whole emotional backstory.

The gym, for example. I love to exercise. Simple. Only, not. Why do I love to exercise? The answer to that question is where you start to find the real me. I want to stay slim. I want to live to be an old lady. I want my later years to be in good health. I’m fifty, and I don’t want to look or feel my age. I love the feeling of sweating and working hard. I want to feel like I have achieved something, which aching muscles the following day give me. I get high on the adrenaline rush and endorphin release…it is addictive. I want to set a good example of a healthy lifestyle to my kids. I want to eat chocolate in the evenings without getting fat. I need to move my body as I spend so much time sitting at my computer…

You see how these seemingly simple life choices are really a complex expression of emotions, of fear, expectation, societal pressures, responsibilities, and personal ambitions. I’m exhausted just writing about it, let alone living it all in my head.

Perhaps that is the crux of writing what I know.

I know the complexities of human thought, the contradictions of human emotions, the daily internal battles that we play out from dawn to dusk.

In the end, exercising makes me feel good.

Walking makes me feel good.

Writing makes me feel good.

Being organised makes me feel good.

Ice-cream makes me feel good.

Spending time with the people I love makes me feel good…and frustrated, and irritated, and angry, and exasperated, and exhausted, but mostly good, better than good, it gives my life meaning. Sharing my time with my family and friends.

Is that why I write? To share what I love with other people? Is that writing what I know?

Nope. I still think that writing should be about imagination. What you know might ground the novel, give weight to the emotional arc, lend some integrity to the telling, but in the end, people want to escape their own reality and lose themselves in someone else's.

They want to relate, empathise and feel, sure.

But they want out. Out of their lives and into another one.

This is what I love about Substack. No one is trying to come up with reels and memes and posts to catch everybody’s attention; we are all just writing whatever excites us, gets our juices flowing, or gets under our skin.

I love that.

Keep writing.

Don’t write what you know. Write what won’t leave you alone.

Till next time…