NaNo Prep: How to Write About What You Don’t Know

NaNo Prep season is here, and we’re asking the folks at NaNo HQ and our friends to help you get ready to tell your story this November. If you’re considering stretching out of your comfort zone to write about a culture or experience different from your own, author Crystal Chan has a few easy tips to figure out if you’re ready:

The old adage is, Write what you know. But what if you find yourself writing about what you don’t know—if you’re a female writer writing about a male protagonist, or a white writer developing a Vietnamese character, or an able-bodied writer crafting a story about someone who’s disabled?

If this is you, congratulations. You’re pushing your limits, and expanding your world. And take a deep breath, because a heavy dose of research—and humility—will be involved. You can’t just conjecture because you’ll do so using your own frame of reference. Writing about what you don’t know explicitly means that you can’t rely on your own experiences. You have to do so much research that this new material becomes what you know.

Here are some launching points for those who want to tackle this issue: