The Anatomy of Curiosity

by Brenna Yovanoff

  Maggie

  “Write what you know” was the most discouraging advice I heard when I was a fourteen-year-old aspiring writer stuck in the middle of nowhere Virginia. I knew a lot about being an animal-crazy bagpipe-playing girl, but that wasn’t what I wanted to write about. I wanted to write thrillers and fantasies and novels set in places that weren’t my home and all about people who weren’t me. I wanted to travel with my fiction. “Write what you know.” What did I know about car chases in 1960s Belfast? Nothing, probably.

  But “write what you know” isn’t really about facts. It’s about truth, which is a different thing altogether. “Write what you know” is a bit of advice that is meant to make sure you write as true a story as you can. So that means an isolated country girl could write a compelling story about a person stranded on a moon camp, because that girl would know very well how to write the truth of isolation. A girl with a lot of siblings could write a story about a rock band, because that girl would know the truth of navigating relationships with a lot of people who know you too well. A girl who practiced her bagpipes for four hours a day could write about a girl training to be an Olympic gymnast, because she would know how it felt to sacrifice time to get good at a skill few people understood.

  You can research facts. It’s much harder to research emotional truths. “Write what you know” means write the emotional dynamics that you’ve experienced. Write the emotional dynamics that are specific to you. Write something true.

  Tessa said writers should have adventures, and I agree. Not to learn facts, but to have as many emotional experiences as you can, so that you can steal them and stuff them in your books. “Write what you know” shouldn’t stop you in your tracks. You know enough now.

  Get to work.

  AFTERWORD

  Like the sisters in “Ladylike,” I consider myself a collector of the exotic and the wonderful and the shocking. And like Viola/Cora/Jane/Brenna, I have followed faint but persistent patterns of echoes down many a poorly lit corridor. And, in the course of all this, I often feel like Rafel, completely captivated and confused by the strange and magical world I’ve found myself in. These are the pleasures of working with writers: a front-row seat to the sweaty magic of their work followed by a first look at the seemingly effortless magic between the covers. These are also the pleasures I hope we’ve managed to capture in this book. For readers and writers alike, we hope this curious anatomy delights and illuminates. And we hope that more than a few of you will be inspired to climb the stairs, cross the desert, and wade into the water with us.

  —Andrew Karre, editor

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Maggie, Tessa, and Brenna have been writing together since 2008. Between them they’ve produced more than 200 short stories and 20 novels, some of which are New York Times best sellers, some of which are Printz award winners, and all of which involve magic. Though they live spread out across the country with various partners, kids, dogs, cats, goats, cars, monsters, and creepy dolls, they do their best to get together a few times a year for things like fairy circles, Sharknado marathons, and copy edits.

  Together, they are also the authors of the anthology The Curiosities: A Collection of Stories.