Direct experience leads to relevance. Have you ever read a piece of fiction or journalism and been like 'this person lived this and is sharing the experience'?

Direct experience leads to relevance. Have you ever read a piece of fiction or journalism and been like 'this person lived this and is sharing the experience'? Half of the creative process is identifying familiar, personal things you take for granted that others will find useful. Effective writers (from farm-content buzzfeed to copywriter bill bernbach to pulitzer-winning journalist bill dedman) distill the most relevant events they've personally seen into a structure that coneveys the experience in order. The delightful parody version of this is 'write what you know' in george lucas in love https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0olm8478DE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0olm8478DE (and every writing manual). But the reason this line shows up everywhere is that it's a good first step. Also, spend only 30% of your time on the first draft. It's seldom any good. Cultivate editors you trust who can work with you and meet you at the right stage. Writer Julian Fellowes talks about 'editing stages' in the first minute of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RSYT2gQFlQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RSYT2gQFlQ.