/lit/ - Literature

>>15979313
>I'm trying to gauge the difference between the "write what you know" of the human condition vs actual lived experience
There is no difference. Anything you really know about "the human condition" must be affirmed by encounters with the limits of existence. If you find yourself guessing about love, hate, jealousy, grief, etc. you aren't writing what you know. The application of the maxim "write what you know" is different for different parts of writing: a writer is expected to faithfully represent diction and dialect, to vividly represent the details of some time and place, and to intimately represent character. If you find yourself doubting the fidelity of your representations, you are most likely writing out of your ass, so to speak. But, direct experience is not always necessary. Research is sufficient for some fiction writing, but only when the writer can discern the truth of a primary source and capture the dramatic essence of the facts. It's like exercising: don't curl a barbell if your back cramps and your wrist hurts. If you feel too little or too much resistance against the facts, you aren't writing what you know. In the latter, you know you don't know. In the former, you don't know that you don't know. So write what you know.