Christopher Pike's Writing Advice

Chapter Ten: Write What You Know

Write what you know. That's advice most established authors would give a beginning writer. And it's good advice -- for the most part. There are exceptions, though, big exceptions.

Why did I start my career writing young adult novels? It happened largely by accident. After having an agent for three years and still getting everything I wrote rejected, he called me one day and said that a certain publishing house -- I can't recall their name -- was starting a horror series aimed at teenagers and was looking for authors to write for it. My agent suggested I come up with a proposal -- a first chapter and an outline -- and submit it.

To me it was just another shot in the dark. I thought my chances of it getting accepted were virtually zero. But a funny thing happened when the editor at the publishing house received my proposal. He told my agent he thought my book was too good for their series. That the book -- "Slumber Party" -- was a solid novel that should be allowed to stand on it's own. Now he might have just been trying to blow us off, but my agent didn't think so.

Actually, my agent loved my proposal. He submitted it to Scholastic and the editor -- Jean Fiewell -- asked to see the whole book. I quickly wrote it -- I wrote it in a month -- and sent it in. A week later she called and offered me a five thousand dollar advance and 6%-8% royalty rate. I was over the moon.

The point is I stumbled into writing for young adult by accident. I knew very little about the genre. But as it turned out YA was perfect for me. I wasn't a lawyer like John Grisham, the author of, "The Firm." I couldn't write legal thrillers. I wasn't a military expert like Tom Clancy. I couldn't write submarine thrillers like, "The Hunt For Red October." 

But I'd gone to high school. I'd been a teenager. Indeed, I think I still acted like one. Plus I was a voracious reader. To be a writer you have to a be a reader -- there are no exceptions. I knew books, I knew stories. I read two or three books a week. After seven years of getting rejected -- I'd written for four years before meeting my agent -- I had figured out how to plot. I had yet to develop a powerful narrative voice but I could write clear and fast-paced prose.  So I was well equipped to write Slumber Party when Scholastic asked for the whole book. I simply had to write about something I knew.

Later, as I continued to write YA novels, I began to broaden the scope of my books. I had been to the Greeks Islands on vacation -- specifically to Delos and Mykonos. I decided to put a YA thriller there, and wove in Greek Mythology, which I had read tons of as a kid. That book became "The Immortal." I often went to Hawaii -- usually to Maui -- to scuba dive so I decided to place a ghost story on that sunny tropical island. The story revolved around a murder that occurred while someone was scuba diving. Again, I was writing what I knew and it was working.

But -- and this is a big BUT -- I feel it's a mistake to ONLY write about what you know. There's a skill all serious writer must develop, called -- "Doing research." In the eighties, when I first got published, before the Internet, doing research could be extremely labor intensive.

For example, one of my most popular novels is, "The Season Of Passage." It's an adult science fiction novel that deals with the second expedition to Mars. To write the book I had to read everything scientists knew about the fourth planet. I had to study the latest theories on rocket propulsion, life-support in space. And because my heroine was a doctor, I had to become familiar with medicine in general. Nowadays, most people would laugh at the science in my novel but it was cutting edge at the time.

The point is if I'd followed the "Write What You Know" rule I never would have written The Season Of Passage. To this day many of my fans consider it my best book. It continues to sell after thirty years.

Research is important. I know many people who are reading these posts are entertaining the idea of writing a historical romance. That's a huge genre; there's a lot of smart people -- mostly women -- writing in that field. You can bet the successful ones are not just writing about what they know. No, they are doing serious research. In fact, most of them probably spend more time researching their books than writing their books.

To sum up my advice -- write what you know. It's a great way to start. Just don't get stuck there. Now we have the Internet. Everything you need to know is just a click away.