Write What You Know
or
The Audition
Should I only write what I know?
‘Write what you know.’ A familiar piece of advice that I guess most writers have heard.
In short, write what you know is usually taken to imply that the ‘truest’ and ‘best’ writing is based on experiences that we’ve had.
A soldier is best-placed to write war; an ex-cop, police procedurals; my wife, marriage to the criminally insane. You get the picture.
When I first began writing, this advice would worry me.
Write what you know?
I didn’t know anything.
I’d done bugger-all in my life. At least nothing story-worthy. That’s why I milk my Great Celebrity Anecdotes for every last drop.
Nothing particularly bad/tragic ever happened to me either (apart from having kids, obviously).
So, taking this advice to heart, the first novel I wrote was set in and around Korea’s DMZ. At the time, we lived next to the DMZ.
The novel I’m writing at the mo, Nicksgate, is set close to my childhood home.
The next novel I’ve outlined is set in the same valley as my childhood home.
You’re starting to see a pattern.
There’s nothing wrong with setting most of your stories around where you live/have lived (Stephen King’s novels are often set in Maine), but my well was already starting to run dry.
I returned to ‘write what you know’, desperate to find a caveat.
Then I came across the Ursula K. Le Guin quote: ‘Write what you know, but remember you may know dragons.’
I don’t know dragons. I mean, my wife… what the hell was Le Guin on about?
She clarified:
‘I write about imaginary countries, alien societies on other planets, dragons, wizards, the Napa Valley in 22002. I know these things. I know them better than anybody else possibly could, so it’s my duty to testify about them. I got my knowledge of them, as I got whatever knowledge I have of the hearts and minds of human beings, through imagination working on observation. Like any other novelist. All this rule needs is a good definition of “know.” ‘
Aha.
I dug a bit deeper, and the consensus seemed to be: don’t ‘write what you know,’ but write what you feel (or have felt).
Maybe we’ve never been hiding from a seven-bottomed beast in a spaceship in the year 3057, but we’ve all been scared before. Take that fear, and use it in your spaceship story.
But to feel things, you need to have experiences. To make observations of people, you’ve got to get yourself out there and interact with them.
My problem is that I spend most of my life holed up in my room, writing, faffing, fapping.
I also have a coasty teaching job where I’m pretty much left to my own devices: rarely see colleagues, couldn’t tell you who my boss is.
As those of you who read my newsletters know well, that suits me down to a tee.
I don’t really do socialising or interacting with my fellow man (unless strictly necessary). I’ve been on a downward slide with this since my early thirties.
No prizes for guessing what I consider the weakest point of my writing: characterisation.
If you, too, fret about your writing, check out my series of five top writing tips.
So, when I’m creating characters, I’m dredging up conversations and interactions I had with people twenty years ago. Desperately trying to remember what people are like, how they, y’know, talk to each other and stuff.
But I’d also read elsewhere about why it’s important to do difficult things (not just for writers, but for everyone).
Combined with Le Guin’s point, I reasoned that it’s especially important for writers to put themselves in situations they find uncomfortable and then mine the crap out of the emotions they feel for ideas and inspiration.
I needed something to force me out of my comfort zone.
A few weeks back, it arrived.
There’s this 10-minute play competition that Seoul Players (the main foreign theatre troupe here) holds every year. It’s one of the few highlights on my empty calendar.
I’ve sometimes fantasised about writing a play for it.
Yeah, right.
Me, a playwright? I can barely string two coherent sentences together for this blog.
This year Seoul Players held open auditions for parts in the plays.
I found myself reading the details on Facebook.
I don’t have any stage experience beyond a couple of appearances in the local pantomimes my Auntie Jean used to run. I was 11. Think squeaky voices and even squeakier acting.
Auditioning was so far out of my comfort zone it was like filling out a tax return in Urdu while being waterboarded with the contents of a spittoon after a chew tobacco festival.
Mining emotions? You’d be calling me Mr Rio Tinto if I subjected myself to this particular chamber of horrors.
Regardless, I signed up.
Bad idea, JL, bad idea, the little voice in my head said.
You? An actor? An arsehole maybe.
Shut up, little voice; it’s too late now.
Despite every fibre in my being screaming at me not to do it, I went to the audition.
Audition Day
I alight from the subway somewhere north of the river. An area I don’t know.
Now, to find the theatre.
It’s starting to rain. Two different pairs of foreigners are heading down the street ahead of me. They turn left.
I’d checked the map and thought it was the third left.
But I am 100% sure they are going to the auditions.
Obviously, I do the classic JL thing of ignoring them and continue on.
because
a) I always think I know better, even in the face of the bleeding obvious.
b) They’ll notice me, and I might actually have to interact with somebody.
I take a winding loop and eventually spot the theatre entrance. I’m 15 minutes early. Do I go in, out of the rain?
Of course not (see b) above).
How not to freak out before an audition?
Distract yourself.
I go for a walk and see if I can find some amusing restaurant names. These are the best I can do:
Who needs love? I think Lennon and McCartney missed a trick with this one:
All you need is Loyal Kensington Style Petit Dessert (all together now)
All you need is Loyal Kensington Style Petit Dessert (everybody)
All you need is Loyal Kensington Style Petit Dessert
Loyal Kensington Style Petit Dessert
Loyal Kensington Style Petit Dessert is all you need.
Has a certain ring to it.
I digress.
The rain turns torrential, and I get soaked. Another bad choice to add to the pile, JL.
I head back to the theatre. Six foreigners are sheltering under the awning of a 7-Eleven opposite. This is my group, waiting to be called in.
*DEEP BREATH*
I amble up to share the shelter. A bald guy about my age and a younger woman say ‘Hi.’
I say,
‘Nice weather for ducks.’
The two smile politely, unsure.
I told you I’m no good at this social interaction thing.
Another guy in his fifties takes a long drag on his cigarette and sizes me up through narrowed eyes.
‘At least we’re in Korea,’ he’s probably thinking, ’there’s no way this lunatic has a gun.’
I sidestep away until I’m socially distanced from the group (my natural habitat).
Then we’re called in.
If you think this is where I’m going to rag on the folks I found in there as a bunch of overly-serious, sandal-wearing, prune-juice drinkers, you’d be wrong. I’m not that ignorant.
Everyone was kind, welcoming and supportive.
And professional. Turns out everyone in my cohort of eight auditioners has acting experience, apart from me.
*gulp*
The closest I get to acting is scaring my kids.
My range goes from unhinged to crazed and back down to unnerving.
I consider all other emotions to be pretentious fluff.
As long as one of the plays needs a slobbering hooligan playing off-ground-tag with his mates from the mental asylum, I should be a shoo-in.
I see the stage. Half a dozen directors are seated before it. My heart is hammering in my chest. I don’t think I have felt such fear since my experience at the heart hospital.
7-Eleven Bald Guy, who seems to know everyone here, makes a quip about himself, me and the producer (who’s welcomed us) all being bald. Something about boiled eggs. Go figure.
I can feel Bald Guy studying me. He’s concerned about my silence.
I’m quiet because I don’t want to give the impression his quip has offended me; I’m struggling to think of a witty retort.
The mention of eggs has made me think of ducks again, and the only funny thing that comes to mind is my favourite duck joke.
‘Why did the duck go to prison?’
‘He was selling quack.’
But if I start talking about ducks again, he’ll tell his mates I’m some kind of fowl-fiddling freak, and I’ll have no chance of landing a part.
The first side (comedy) actually goes quite well. I’m paired with an obviously experienced actress. I don’t freeze.
The only awkward bit is where I have to waltz with her. Me? Dance? You might as well ask a basking shark to play Connect 4.
But I’m grateful as she carries me through (literally, my two left feet still tangled in a clove hitch as she drags me clear).
The second, longer side (another comedy) is a bit meh.
Then we have to do shorter sides where the directors give us specific directions for our character.
In the first, a director says he wants me to have a ‘golden retriever personality.’
What the hell is a ‘golden retriever personality?’
Hasn’t he read my newsletter?
I don’t know dog breeds.
For me, dogs come in two breeds: shit-scary and terrifying.
In the second short side (melodrama), my character is practising yoga.
I don’t know any yoga positions. What do you think I am, an overly-serious, sandal-wearing prune-juice drinker?
The only position that pops into my head is Downward Duck.
No clue what the hell that looks like, so I find myself making an arch with my forehead on the floor and my arms out like wings.
As I try to deliver lines in this uncomfortable position, from the corner of my eye, I spot Bald Guy in the audience, staring at me. Disturbed.
It doesn’t help that my partner for this side is delivering her lines like she’s reading aloud the phone book after a shovel of ketamine and a frontal lobotomy. Thankfully, it’s all over in about two minutes.
In the last one, the director says, ‘I just want to see the emotion.’
How to stand out at an acting audition?
Emotion, baby.
She wants me to be ‘hostile, angry, enraged.’
My forte.
Okay. I can do this.
It’s the longer side we did before. And I’m the same character. I flick through the script.
I identify three lines where I can really build the emotion. On the third line, I’m going to go completely nuts, bring the house down. I’ll show them acting.
I deliver the first line. I’m hostile. I can feel the directors’ eyes on me.
I deliver the second line. I’m angry. I can feel the directors on the edges of their seats.
Here comes the third line. Rage. Batton down the hatches, Mama, JL’s about to explode.
I tense…
‘That’s enough,’ the director says.
WHAT!?
I’m gutted. That was my one chance to cut loose. My chance to shine. My Oscar moment.
Cruelly snatched away in the blink of an eye.
None of the directors engages—or even looks at—me when I leave. I come away thinking about what might have been.
I showed a little, but not enough.
Story of my life.
Was I disappointed? Yeah.
I’d approached the whole thing lightly, not expecting anything apart from something to write a blogpost about (et voila).
Afterwards, I realised I was kidding myself. I REALLY wanted it.
They said we’d know if we passed about two days after the auditions.
My guesstimate was I had a slim 70 30 (against) chance.
Yet I still clung to hope for those two days. I even took my phone off silent for once.
I know.
Alas.
Yeah, I was a little gutted. But I was glad I did it.
I proved to myself that I could put myself in one of the most stressful situations imaginable (for me) and get through it. Maybe not with flying colours, but adequate-like.
And you know what? It gave me a hunger.
I’m going to go back to that audition next year. I know I can do better, and I will.
Maybe I won’t get the part again, but I’m not scared anymore. Mostly.
Most importantly, the audition gave me an a to z refresher of emotions, both for myself and also observing them in others:
agitation, annoyance, anticipation, anxiety, confusion, defeat, desire, determination, disappointment, doubt, dread, desire, embarrassment, envy, fear, frustration, gratitude, hopefulness, humiliation, insecurity, nervousness, paranoia, regret, relief, reluctance, resignation, sadness…
That day, I felt and saw them all.
So yeah. Write what you know, but you’re a human being; you’ve felt all of the above (and more) at some point in your life.
You ‘know’ a lot more than you think.
And do difficult shit. Put yourself in uncomfortable situations. You’ll learn more. You’ll ‘know’ more. It’s not going to kill you.
You might even enjoy it.
In short, live a little.
Speak soon,
JL
*BREAKING LAST-MINUTE UPDATE*
Five days after the audition, a director called me. She’s given me a main part in her comedy.
The fool.
And yet…
*PUNCHES AIR*
THE AFTERMATH
A couple of months after I wrote this, I appeared in Mucho Millions in the Seoul 10 Minute Play Festival.
That’s me at the front. I told you I didn’t even have to act, I spend most of my life with my head in my hands.
If you really have far too much time on your hands, a recording of the performance is available HERE.
It was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. One of the directors even asked me to audition for an upcoming Shakespeare production. I was flattered, but that would definitely be a Bard too far.
If you’ve never done it, I can’t recommend it enough. Try it. I’m serious. As you read above, I was the last person who thought he could get up on stage in front of a few hundred people. You can do it, too.
Okay, not everyone has thespian ambitions. But I’m sure there’s something. What’s stopping you trying that thing you were always curious about? It’s a new year, life is short, and it’s there to be enjoyed.
Go for it.
I’m not going to be scared of life anymore. I’m sick of being such a passive prick. I’m going to finish my novel and put it out there for people to recommend or ridicule.
Once again, welcome aboard.
Now, let’s go smash it in 2026.
Speak soon.
JL
PS: Want more from a struggling writer/professor/parent/half-wit lost in South Korea?
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