Guest Post w/ Clare Marshall {Blog Tour}

Today we have the lovely Clare Marshall. Please give her a warm welcome as she stops with us today on her blog tour! Clare is the author of Within, which was just released at the end of last year. You must check it out!




Write What You Know and Challenge Yourself 

I don’t like clichés, and I try to avoid them as much as possible. The writing cliché, “Write what you know,” while good advice on the surface, is not for the adventurous writer. Writers looking to improve their technique and perhaps their personal knowledge will take what they know and turn it into a challenge.

It’s certainly not a bad thing to draw from things you know. There’s something that can be said for drawing from the internal well of knowledge within you. There is a strength there that could last for several books, if not every book you write.

I set Within in Halifax because I know the landscape: I lived there for four years while I did my undergrad in journalism. The landscape also happens to play a large part in the novel’s plot, especially the Commons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Common). I also drew some knowledge from the psychology part of my undergrad degree to create Trinity’s (the protagonist’s) condition.

However, taking a subject or a place you know well and using it to step outside your comfort zone can be a challenge. The most challenging part of Within was that it was one of the first novels I’ve written that didn’t have a heavy fantasy influence or setting. Somehow writing about a place you know is harder because I couldn’t just make stuff up about it. Sure, I took some liberties—but I spent more time than I thought I would on Google Maps, making sure the streets and other locations were correct.  So while I had inside knowledge about Halifax, it was still out of my comfort zone to set a novel there.

Writing from multiple points of view was also a challenge. I tend to lean toward first person-only narratives from the female perspective. My novel has a strong female presence, but I also wanted to see what the men were thinking as well. It was fun to get into everyone’s thoughts, and it was something I wanted to try especially since reading A Song of Ice and Fire. Every character is a hero in their own mind, and I find that idea fascinating. My next book will be back in first person, but I have other manuscripts where I hope to use third person, multiple POVs again, and improve on my technique.

Taking something you know and twisting it around to be something different can keep your writing fresh and hopefully, fun. Try it!

Greatly said girl! Thanks so much for stopping by Clare!