The one piece of advice that all of my writing professors have drilled into my mind is to write about something you are an expert on. Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t explore new topics and genres. It does mean, however, that your writing will be better if you have extensive knowledge about your topic.
The first step in understanding this piece of advice is to think about how obvious it is when a writer is not an expert in the subject matter they write about. Maybe you’ve watched a show and thought to yourself “well that’s not realistic”. Or maybe you’ve read a book where a character goes through something traumatizing, and you think to yourself “that doesn’t seem like a normal way to cope”. I’m sure you’ve noticed something like this in another author’s writing.
And there’s no shame in authors taking creative liberties and exploring new possibilities. That’s the fun of creative writing in the first place. But it’s very obvious to your audience when you don’t have a lot of knowledge about what you’re writing about. So, if you are wanting to venture into unfamiliar territory in your writing, take some responsibility to be as accurate as possible.
The first and, in my opinion, the easiest method to be a more knowledgeable author is to draw on your personal experience. Think about it as a piece of music. There are some songs out there that are good and that’s that. But then there are some songs that deeply move you because you can just tell that the songwriter inserted a piece of their heart into the music. This is what you’re aiming for in your writing when you incorporate personal experiences.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you only write creative nonfiction (unless that’s your thing). Rather, it means that there are elements of your personal life that you can incorporate into any story and by including those very real experiences your writing. For example, I recently wrote a short story where my protagonist was a sexual assault survivor. While I have never survived sexual assault, I do have anxiety, so I know what it’s like to feel terrified when trying to go about my everyday life. I gave my protagonist very real anxiety symptoms to make her character have realistic emotional health.
The second method to expert writing is to do research. If you want to write about something that has nothing to do with your life, that’s completely fine, just do some research first. This can be in the form of field research where you might volunteer at an organization you want to write about. You could also find and interview someone who does have personal experience in your subject matter. Or you can simply do some research online.
I cannot stress enough how important it is to make an honest and extensive effort to become an expert in the topics of your writing. Trust me, your readers will thank you for it.