Build Your General Knowledge Library
I spent the day traipsing through a nature reserve today. It was fun, but it was also somewhat business related. One of the niche sites I’ve been building is an outdoor pursuit. I’m not an outdoor guy. This is half of the reason I’m writing this article today.
The other half is that I’m taking a month off internet browsing. Instead, I’m reading books. I’ve been reading Lawrence Block’s From Plot To Print To Pixel for the past couple of days. It’s good but quite a slow read… I’ll finish it this evening and it’ll have taken me three days. That’s a long time for me. Anyway, there’s a chapter about research and building characters, and that made me realise something: You can never have too much knowledge.
Building A General Knowledge For Writing: You’ll Be Different One Day
I am not an outdoors person. At least, I wasn’t until very recently when I realised my constant computer use was leaving me with no actual life and a hunched back from the hours at the screen. So I made some changes, got some new hobbies… and today I was attacked by these little bugs that were hiding down a forest path.
Two years ago, if I’d been told that I’d be writing about [redacted outdoor pursuit] for money, I wouldn’t have believed it. My point for this is that you don’t know what useful information you’re ignoring today that’s not relevant to you in the present but will be in the future.
Another niche site I’m working on is a cooking-based one. Now, until I was way-past twenty-years old, I didn’t care at all for cooking. I used to eat takeaway food every night and the idea of making my own food seemed like a waste of time when someone would do it for you. Then I got some un-diagnosable health issue and suddenly I had to start getting really careful about what I ate and when, and my whole life has changed since.
In fact, of the sites I’ve launched in the past month, I could maybe have written about one of them a couple of years back. The others simply wouldn’t have occurred to me. The same will probably be true of you.
General Knowledge Reason II: Research Is A Pain
Research takes time. If you’re trying to write a lot and you’re trying to write quickly, research takes you out of your bubble and onto Google and Wikipedia. It slows you down and with every link you click there’s a chance that you’re going to lose your concentration. Before you know it, you’re playing Super Mario Online, stalking your ex or reading about some interesting guy from the Winter War of ’41.
The more general knowledge you have, or the more information you have to hand, the quicker your writing will be.
Also, Your Writing Will Be Better
Back on the very first article I wrote for this site, I said that it’s possible to smell a fake review from a mile away. I told you to use the product and take pictures of the product in order to prove you have the item.
This is true, but it extends to everything as opposed to just photographs. If you’re writing fiction, if you don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re going to get negative karma. I have one friend who writes in the right-wing apocalypse genre. He’s from the UK, but he writes for the American market.
In England, we have less guns. My friend wrote about the coming end of the world and how American patriots are going to rise up and Make America Great Again by living off the land and shooting bad guys and whatnot. His books actually sold pretty well. However one of the weirder things about post-apocalyptic fiction is that the people who read those stories tend to be obsessive about guns. One email my friend got was about how he’d got some ridiculous detail wrong about taking a certain model of gun apart and maintaining it. The email was thousands of words.
My point is: If you’re going to write gun-nut fiction, you’d better learn how guns work.
The same is true of reviewing products and copywriting. You can’t just write a review that’s a longer version of, “These shoes… you should buy them now because they’re really great shoes. Really comfortable. Really cheap. Really cool.” People are going to see through that immediately. Facts and knowledge make your writing better, and they’re also a key part of your writing voice, because writing voice is ultimately how you express certain things.
“These shoes are comfortable. They’ll remind you of those summers when you were a kid; playing in the mud, climbing trees and spending hours outside until you knew you’d get blasted at by your Mom for staying out after dark.”
^That sort of description will help a certain type of person relate to you.
General Knowledge Point Three: You’ll Try New Stuff
Some things that you’re not interested in and know nothing about are actually pretty awesome. One of the awesome things about building new projects around your hobbies is that it creates a positive feedback loop.
I used to be one of those people who were overly frugal. I wouldn’t do anything if I could save a few pennies, and the idea of spending a few hundred pounds to test out a hobby seemed ridiculous to me.
However, now I build niche sites, buying things is an investment. Sometimes those investments pay off dramatically. I might spend £200, but if I build a niche site worth £200 a month, then I’m making a return on investment that Wall Street bankers could only dream of.
This creates a positive loop because I try more stuff, get more ideas, make more money and then try more stuff. I know I’ve lost the train of thought here a little; but trying new things, making notes and using them is the surest way to have a more interesting life.
The same is true if you write fiction. Say you write adventure stuff like James Bond. Go on a vacation to the Caribbean, stay in a nice hotel, eat some of the local food. Have your hero do the same whilst spying on some super evil genius. Your writing will be better for it. That’s what Ian Fleming essentially did, so you know I’m telling the truth.
Final Thoughts: You are a Wealth Of Knowledge
I tried writing a crime novel once. I was going to set it in a city I’d lived in for three years. In the first chapter, I hit a roadblock: I didn’t know anything about the city I’d lived in. I couldn’t remember the road names; I couldn’t remember where the landmarks were. The novel fell flat on its face before it even began.
We’re constantly experiencing new things and overcoming new situations. Every single person has a different voice because they’ve got a unique collection of experiences. However, most of us don’t attempt to use any of that, or collect any of it.
There are sites I want to build that would already exist if I’d kept a diary years ago and written down all the pertinent information. Don’t make that mistake. Build a bank of knowledge that you can use down-the-road, even if it’s just a simple notebook of facts and figures.
(This has been another off-the-beaten-track post. Apologies to all who prefer the nuts and bolts stuff. I’m sure it’ll come back around. In the meantime, check out all my other posts for how-to gold.)