The advice, “write what you know”, came from Mark Twain to encourage people to embody their own personal experiences in their writing. Is this bad advice or was he spot on? To answer this question immediately, I’d say he was one hundred percent correct.
There’s a but, here.
You may be limiting yourself to an audience that can benefit from your writing. What does that mean? It’s simple, really. If you have writer’s block, you’ll feel better after you’re done reading this.
What Writing What You Know Means
It means that you don’t dabble in writing about how to be a heart surgeon if you’re a dentist. It means not writing about how to care for someone with Parkinson’s disease if you have only cared for those with Alzheimer’s disease. It means not writing about how to get a cat to love you when you’ve only ever known dogs.
Okay, that last one was stupid, but you get the point.
What we write needs to come with some form of expertise or experience. For instance, if I have owned cats my entire life domestically, but hardly ever cared for a stray cat outside my house, I could still write about how I accomplished getting a tiny feral beast to rub its head across my hand in less than two weeks.
How Writing What You Know Limits You
Mark Twain wasn’t wrong in his advice, so that alone isn’t what is limiting you. You, yourself, are limiting you. You could run out of ideas quickly if you only wrote what you knew because you would think you couldn’t expand a little. You’d stick to a tiny niche.
Let’s say you love to cook and you focus on American cuisine with a gourmet touch. You’ve been practicing this style of cooking for decades and only once or twice have cooked recipes from El Salvador. You’d be selling yourself short not to include dishes like pupusas in your mix.
The entire concept is that you know cooking. That doesn’t just have to be American cooking, you can cook anything you want and broaden your practice and expertise! Chances are that cooking is relatable throughout the world with little hacks here or there. Teach your audience about leveling up their American homemade recipes with a little tip from the Middle East – like adding Za’Atar to their common scrambled eggs and bacon breakfast.
You Don’t Have to Leave Your Niche
As you can see with the example above, you’re not writing about how to use Za’Atar in Middle Eastern dishes, you’re writing about how to add this delicious spice to American dishes. You see the connection? You’re still on topic but with a little flare added in. This makes you unique.
With the Internet, We All Know the Same Thing
It’s sad, really, that everyone is an “expert” on every topic. Have you ever spoken to someone who could explain the entire autobiography about an actor just because they watched one reel on social media? Have you been corrected with your own knowledge about the life expectancy for opossums only to be corrected by someone who said they asked AI and AI told them no, they don’t live only 3-5 years? Who’s right? This is what I thought I knew!
I’m on a rant here. But the point is that everyone seems to know everything about every topic on this planet just because the internet and social media exist. How are we supposed to stand out with our copywriting content? How are we supposed to be an expert in our field – in other words, how are we supposed to PROVE we’re an expert?
Go get a PhD. Just kidding. You don’t have to although that would build credibility.
Truth is, be unique. It’s a battle out there. Even still, there is a special audience who will like you and follow you. All of us have our own favorite person we listen to on a podcast. We have our favorite fitness influencer. We have our favorite news station. We have our favorite baseball team.
Seriously, you can tell me the Yankees are the best team on the planet, but I will always root for the Dodgers. Hopefully I didn’t lose you there.
Don’t be afraid to expand your writing and the topics you cover. Write what you know but also write everything you know and combine them. If you do write about cooking and you also love cats, try adding a special blog post about cooking for your cat. Seriously! I will even read it.
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