Whomever first started telling people that the first rule of writing is “Write What You Know” really needs their eyeballs sporked out and fed to a rabid gerbil.
I know what you’re thinking. Kristyn, don’t be stupid, gerbils are vegetarians.
So listen. The next time you’re watching a play written by a friend of yours and something starts to feel a little familiar about it, and you start to think, “Oh, my God! This is totally about me!”… open up your mind to the possibility that your friend is just a good playwright, one capable of writing universally sympathetic scenes… and get over yourself. It ain’t all about you.
I mean, it could be. But it probably isn’t.
When we say that writers should write what they know, what we’re really saying is that they shouldn’t write about things they know nothing about. For instance, I’m never going to write a play about nuclear fission. Not only would such a piece be insanely dull, but the only thing more lacking than my knowledge of nuclear fission is my desire to educate myself about it. So I will leave the musicals about the splitting of the atom to those who know what they’re talking about, and I will continue to write about more mundane, less specialized topics. And on those occasions when I feel inspired to write a play about something I don’t know about, I will do research, so that I will know about it when I write about it.
Glad I got that off my chest.
With all of that said and out of the way, and in the interest of full, honest disclosure, I admit to having written one play which is 100% autobiographical, with very few alterations from real life – only the names were changed, to protect the guilty. But, although intensely personal and based on real events in my life, the play covers such a universal theme that I felt artistically safe putting it on stage. And as I suspected, the audience identified with it, without any exception I’m aware of. I directed the play in 2008 at the Wilmington Drama League in Wilmington, Delaware, as part of the WDL’s Evening of One-Act Plays. My play performed right before intermission. During intermission, I was in the restroom when I overheard the following conversation:
Woman #1: What did you think of that last one?
Woman #2: Oh my god, I thought I was watching my life story.
Woman #1: That’s what I thought too, that it was just like you and John.
There’s probably no better compliment to a playwright than overhearing a conversation like that. In contrast to having a friend or family member turn to you suspiciously at intermission and say, “This play is about me, isn’t it?”, hearing strangers identify with the words that I’ve put to paper means I’ve done my job. If it’s moved them, if it’s touched something in them, then I have written a good play.
I started writing this blog because I was going through some old half-finished scripts and came across one I started writing a little over a year ago. A guy I was somewhat involved with told me a story that inspired me. After obtaining his permission, I began to turn his amusing anecdote into a short play. About ten pages in, I realized there was no way to finish the story and make it entertaining without making this guy look like a total buffoon. And at the time, I cared about his feelings, so I stopped writing it. Today I read the script and found myself snickering – not necessarily at what I’d already written, but at where the script had been headed. This story is not something that happened to me, and not something I witnessed. But again, it is a story which I think will have universal amusing appeal on stage. (And what writer would pass up the opportunity to exact revenge on a jerky ex?)
So keep an eye out… that script will soon be coming to a stage, well, somewhere. And when you see it… don’t assume it’s about you. Unless you know for a fact that it is. You know who you are. 😉
Kristyn Leigh Robinson 