Summary

The website content provides guidance on finding writing topics by drawing on personal experiences, emotions, and expertise, and emphasizes the importance of writing about what one knows and feels.

Abstract

The article "What Should I Write About When I Don’t Know What to Write About?" offers advice for writers struggling with topic selection. It suggests that writing about personal knowledge, experiences, and emotions can lead to compelling content. The author recounts their own journey with writing, from challenges with handwriting to discovering typing, which transformed their ability to express thoughts. The piece encourages writers to focus on subjects they are familiar with or have become experts in through research and lived experience. It also introduces the concept of memoir as a way to write about oneself, noting the current popularity of the genre. The article provides specific writing prompts to inspire stories about humorous, tragic, or significant life events, and it stresses the necessity of evoking emotion to engage readers. The author, who is an adoption coach and an ADHD advocate, uses their own life stories to illustrate how personal experiences can be woven into broader societal issues, making the writing both relatable and impactful.

Opinions

The author believes that writing about what you know and care about is essential for producing authentic and engaging content.
They suggest that personal stories, especially those with emotional depth, are particularly compelling and can resonate with readers.
The article posits that becoming an expert on a subject through research and experience can make one's writing more authoritative and interesting.
It is implied that writing can be therapeutic, particularly when addressing sad or difficult experiences.
The author emphasizes the importance of creativity and originality in writing to avoid boring the reader with overdone topics.
They assert that readers are generally forgiving of minor grammatical errors if the story is compelling and emotionally charged.
The author advocates for the use of writing prompts as a tool to overcome writer's block and generate new ideas.
They highlight the value of memoirs and personal essays in the current literary market.
The article encourages writers to connect their personal narratives to larger societal issues to create meaningful and relevant content.

Writing | Writing Prompts | Reading | Readers | Creativity

What Should I Write About

When I Don’t Know What to Write About?

It’s impossible to write if one doesn’t know what one is going to write about. Remembering to write about what you know, what’s happened to you, and what you care about helps you find a topic. Then drop in an emotional wallop and you’ve got it made! You’re writing.

Write What You Know

In 3rd grade my teacher made me trade papers with the little boy behind me so I could see how lovely his handwriting was compared to my dreadful handwriting. My handwriting is still dreadful. Sometimes I can’t read it. I’ll ask my husband: “Eric, can you read this word on my grocery list?”

Our assignment was a few sentences about our spring vacation. If she’d asked me to talk about my spring vacation, no problem. It’s not that I didn’t have ideas, even sentences in my head, I just wasn’t coordinated enough to make my fingers write properly. (Not unusual for ADHD kids, but such hadn’t been discovered when I was in 3rd grade.)

Then I learned to type. Life was forever changed. It was an old manual Remington, probably made in the 1930s. Maybe it had belonged to my grandfather who had died? I was typing homework before other kids had hit their first keystroke.

I’ve been writing ever since and always on a keyboard.

The moral of this story is WRITE. If you’re a keyboard whiz, type rough drafts on your computer.

If you’re the type that likes to sit out in the backyard with a glass of lemonade and a writing pad and pen, write at your picnic table.

I know people who write on napkins in restaurants and the backs of envelopes Lots of people carry around a little recorder or use their phone to speak what they’re going to transcribe later. (It’s my least favorite method but if it works for you, go for it.)

But I Don’t Know What to Write About

Write what you know. For many, that’s writing about ourselves. The fancy term for writing about oneself is “memoir.” Memoirs are big sellers right now.

If you grew up in Denver like me, write about that. Don’t write about Chicago which you only visited once, unless there’s a good story about it.

Maybe your family took a road trip, ended up getting hopelessly lost, and a kind Chicago policeman turned on his siren and told your Father to follow him to our destination. (True story!) But that’s a two-sentence story, and I never visited Chicago again. You won’t find me writing about the Windy City.

But you might find me writing about unusual experiences I had with my Father. I could put my only Chicago experience in that story.

I write about writing because I’ve had many years experience writing, ghost-writing, and editing. It’s a subject I know a lot about. I’m an expert.

I write about adoption because I am adopted. I write about ADHD because I have raging ADHD and have had all my life. Because these are part of my life experience, I became an expert from learning about ADHD and adoption.

I became a student of adoption and ADHD. Consulted medical experts and mental health professionals. Went to workshops, seminars, certification programs, and more recently webinars. Read dozens of books. That’s how I became an expert. That’s how I ended up teaching workshops and coaching.

That’s why I can write about ADHD and adoption, backing up my experience with knowledge and facts.

If you aren’t an expert, become one. Read, go to webinars, sign up for workshops, consult experts, do the research.

Great MaryJo, But I Still Don’t Know What to Write about

Ok, let me give you some ideas. In the writing world, they’re called “writing prompts.”

Write about something funny that happened to you or what you did: The time you and your brothers and sisters put so many candles on your Dad’s birthday cake that the cake caught on fire.

When your cat threw up a hairball on your new boyfriend’s Christmas present.

Fill out these stories by leading up to the event — the planning of the event, the buying of the present, the teasing of your Father about how old he is. Even birthday parties in your family and your traditions as long as you’ve got a couple stories in there. Stories sell!

Write about awful things that happened to you or what you did: I worked on my master’s thesis for four years and then threw it in the fire. Explain why you did what you did, the consequences, and what you’ve learned in retrospect. (Read about the burning of my thesis.)

Write about sad events that happened to you: Write about the trauma of losing a child or of a parent who died to soon. Of losing a pet. Stories that pull on our heart strings.

You don’t believe me that people like to read about “sad”? Look at the sales of The National Enquirer: lots of sad stories. Writing about such events can be healing. Reading about them in The National Enquirer, not so much.

I’ve written about the death of my Father at 61. And the death of our cat from a malignant tumor.

Write about your experiences with the issues of today: I’ve written about Black Lives Matter and Covid 19 from my personal experiences and how these issues feel to me.

I’m not Black so I do not write about what it might be like to live as a Black person. I am not an epidemiologist or a public health expert. I do not need to repeat what these experts have said and repeated.

But I can write about my experiences teaching in an all-Black school. How I’m living with the stay-at-home and what’s changed. Good stories come from linking one’s personal experience to a current topic.

Did you notice there’s a common thread in these four suggestions? Each one elicits an emotion from your reader or makes them laugh: sadness, grief, shock, happiness, anger.

Get Some Emotion in Your Writing

If a story doesn’t have emotion in it, you have two choices: Put some emotion in your story or toss it. Stories without emotion are really boring. Nobody likes boring.

P.S. With the exception of the grammar grumps, your readers will excuse a misplaced comma, a run on sentence or a misspelled word if you’ve got a great story with a wallop of emotion.

P.P.S. And please be creative. Nothing spells boring more quickly than reading what other people have written about over and over.

If you’re still worried about your writing, discover readability. Readability is what counts!

Because I’m an adoption coach for women, my writing, as one might assume, focuses on adoption. In addition, I offer words of wisdom for adult ADHDers. (Not only do I suffer from and celebrate ADHD, but so do many adopted folks.)

You’ll find me at LivingWithAdoption.com. For a list of common adoption challenges, grab my free Adoption Checklist for Women: 25 Life Issues.

Given raging ADHD, it’s no surprise that focus does not come to me easily! In addition to adoption and ADHD, I also write random stories from my life, what I’ve observed, what’s in the news, about writing and editing, things I care about, and what tickles my fancy.

Watch for my forthcoming eBook: Oh, Look There’s a Squirrel and Other Stories.