When you are writhing a scene and come up to something that you have not experienced, do you: Do you best to experience it short of causing bodily harm? -or- Do you use Google to find out what you want to know?
Assuming this is a question of whether or not the age-old cliche of "write what you know" should be taken literally and to the T (and I'm sorry, but yes, it is a cliche in that it's a badly worded piece of advice that's been repeated so many times I couldn't tell you who first said it), allow me to simply quote Stephen King on the matter:
I think you begin by interpreting "write what you know" as broadly and inclusively as possible. If you're a plumber, you know plumbing, but that is far from the extent of your knowledge; the heart also knows things, and so does the imagination.
He said it in reference of basically "imbuing [writing] with life" (also his quote). Basically, that one should take life experiences and use them in stories, yes, but I also feel that this particular quote meant expand upon things with your own imagination and abilities. If you don't know something, then yes, you'll probably want to do a little research about it (observe, look it up, ask), but you don't need to actually
experience something completely first-hand in order to be able to write about it. For example, with the plumber, yeah, the plumber's going to write about plumbing, but there's a lot of other little bits about the book that he might want to add -- like, if the plumber is on a spaceship (which, in this example, I believe he is), what a lack of gravity feels like. Does he just stick to the only thing he's experienced (that is, fixing pipes), or does he branch out and let his imagination define the things he hasn't experienced?
For a clearer example, I'm going to get a bit personal here and say I write frequently about working heterosexual relationships and sometimes gay sex. The fact of the matter, however, is that I've never dated a guy who didn't want to do much more than hold hands, and I've never participated in male-male sexual activities for fairly obvious reasons. But if the story calls for it, do I throw up my hands and say, "Oh, I can't experience this myself, so therefore, I should refrain from writing about it"?
The answer is no. Why
should I let myself be blocked by the fact that I can't actually experience these things in real life? Instead, I do a bit of research. I read about how things work and ask around. I observe working relationships in action, and I have a few gay friends who are more than happy to tell me all about what it feels like the first time. If I need to use Google because I'm not in contact with those resources, then yes, I'm going to use it because it's there
to be used. (Granted, I try to find reliable sites, but you get the idea.)
Point is, the phrase "write what you know" shouldn't be taken strictly literally, as King implies. It's writing what you know, yes, but the "know" means research, imagination,
and personal experience. If you don't have the latter, then that's okay too.
