Writing What Is Real

For as long as I can remember, I have loved to write. Stories, poems, scripts, you name it. If it is creative writing, I have given it a go and enjoyed it. What I love about putting pen to paper is that those words come entirely from my heart and my mind. I can build worlds and form civilizations that may never exist on our universe. Yes, I love to write science fiction—it is one of my favourite genres, in fact. The idea that I can bring readers into this magical and colourful world which I have dreamed up really excites me. That is what writing is about, isn't it? Creating a place into which your readers can escape for just a short while. It might sound easy, but while you are building this universe, whether based on the real world or some other fantastical dimension, your audience needs to be able to relate enough to it that they will keep coming back.

How can you possibly make such an abstract world sound relatable? It's actually easier than you might think.

During my time at university, my classmates and I were taught a module which focused mainly on writing scenes and scripts for performances which we would be showing. Among many other points which proved invaluable in terms of creating written pieces, I have always held onto the advice of my professor when she told us to 'write what you know' or 'write what is real.'

When I first heard the phrase, I immediately thought it to be restricting, that I was to write only about things that I had already learned, which for me, being completely non-academically minded, would have been somewhat limited. Having always fallen behind in maths, history, geography, science, I didn't feel that my limited knowledge alone was enough to make a piece of creative writing interesting.

Luckily for me though, 'write what you know' was not a does-what-it-says-on-the-label kind of sentence. I later learned that in order to make a piece of fictional writing feel real to its reader, no matter how extravagant the plot, I should use tiny snippets of the world right in front of me.

Very quickly, it becomes much less restricting.

A simple pen or pencil and a small notebook can help you bring your story to life. For example, if I am on a bus and hear an older couple having an intriguing yet everyday conversation, I jot it down in my notepad. If I see a woman in the park playing with her dog, I write how she throws the ball and so on and so forth. I take my notepad and pen everywhere that I go and I am always watching people and listening to my surroundings.

Write how people walk and the tone in which they talk. Write what your sister's hairband looks like and how the smoked salmon you are cooking smells. Make it a habit. Write what is real, then later you can use those things in your writing and your 'out of this world' characters will seem that little bit more relatable in your scenes.

A human character who has had no relatable features added will never keep a reader interested. An alien character, who is clumsy and likes his eggs cooked a very specific way already has at least 2 tings that a reader might relate to.

So there you have it, whoever your character might be, whatever the world you have built up, if you add in little snippets of what you have witnessed to be real, you can make your story seem real too.