What *Won't* You Write About?

🍀 a question that arose on my Ireland writing retreat

🍀 dublin writing retreat fam

I had the honor of working with these incredible women as their nonfiction writing teacher (

WritingWorkshops.com

!) in Dublin last week. We workshopped chapters about everything from abortion to QAnon, pet grief to sexism in the medical industry. You name it; we went there.

We let ourselves write bad.

We critiqued each other’s work because feedback is part of the writing process.

Writing without feedback is just journaling.

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we used this card deck as part of a writing exercise

A question arose that I can’t get out of my head: What won’t you write about?

Some writers answered by genre: A romance novelist said she doesn’t see herself writing fantasy or nonfiction.

While other writers answered by topic: A memoirist said she’d never write about her ex-husband.

We discussed the complexity of writing about other people, knowing that sometimes a story makes no sense to the reader without specific context or characters. Identifying personal boundaries can help writers discern the context necessary to move the story along from unnecessary details that feel self-exploitative.

Or maybe it’s time to kill some darlings.

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500,000 million-year-old rock in howth, ireland

So, I ask you, what won’t you write about?

XO,

Tawny

P.S. Two spots left in my Book Proposal Boot Camp that starts next week! Come hang?