Limit the Exotic. Write What You Know.

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Most fiction writers tell stories that reflect their life experiences. They tap into what they know. John Updike's novels and stories express his familiarity with Protestant, small-town, middle-class American life with an overlay of sophistication. He wrote for The New Yorker for years and enjoyed and immensely successful writing career. Yet success brought trouble at times and strained his relationships. Shortly after his marriage to Mary, stories about the Maples began to appear in The New Yorker. They portrayed an attractive couple in their mid20's, their four children, a move from New York to a town north of Boston, the couple's quarrels and reconciliation and eventual no-fault divorce in Massachusetts. Updike and Mary divorced in 1976.

Updike admitted, “All the Maple stories were fairly close to the bone.” While discussing an episode in one of them, he recalled, “I had a fever” — and then he corrected himself: “I mean, the hero had a fever.”

Fannie Hurst's novels portray her experiences in New York City during the "roaring Twenties" and express her frustration as an ambitious woman who wanted to shake things up. Her most famous novel Back Street told the story of a woman who dedicated her life to a married man she passionately loved, only to lose him to his family in the end. This novel reflects personal experience. While she was married, Hurst had an affair with Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson during the 1920s and 1930s. 

Her novel Lonely Parade portrayed three successful career women who she intended should be happy, but happiness eluded them.

Hurst’s books are largely ignored today, though they were prescribed reading in some colleges through the 1980s. In the end, her flashy, unconventional lifestyle is not one to which most readers can relate. That danger always exists for the fiction writer.

Good fiction requires tapping into real life experiences. Grapple with the reality that is your own. Write what you know! Be aware also that your readers must be able to relate to your characters and their situations. 

Related reading: Wendell Berry: The Writer's Obligation