don't write what you know ... write what you understand

You don’t have to live something to write it well, but you do have to understand how it works emotionally, psychologically and morally.

A few ways writers interpret it:

• Knowledge is factual; understanding is human. You can research a courtroom, but you must understand fear, power, shame, hope and consequence to write a trial scene that feels true.

• Understanding comes from curiosity, not autobiography. Asking why people act the way they do, what they want, what they fear, what they’re willing to sacrifice.

• Understanding enables ethical and accurate imagination. Especially when writing characters unlike yourself — different eras, classes, beliefs — you’re responsible for grasping their inner logic, not projecting yours onto them.

• Understanding reveals universality. You may not know a 1920s evangelist, a revolutionary, or a fallen celebrity — but you understand ambition, doubt, charisma, loneliness, faith. That’s the bridge.

For playwrights, especially, this matters because the stage punishes false understanding. Audiences forgive invention; they don’t forgive emotional dishonesty.

For an example of a play written from what I understand and not what I've experienced, see the sample preview of my play One Damn Thing.