Or maybe you know way too much.

In the comments section earlier, Daisy wrote: 

“I’m a biologist (okay, research associate at a biotech company, but that’s a lot of words for “what do you do”) and I have never managed to write a decent story in a scientific setting because I keep getting hung up on the details and the need to explain what everything is.”

Her problem is not unique.  As I’ve mentioned before, I teach an annual course for doctors who want to become novelists, and one of the most common problems they have is “explainitis.”  They know too much and they want to tell you everything.  So they do. 

Readers don’t WANT to know the intricacies of the Krebs cycle.  They don’t want to know the biochemistry of digitalis.  They just want to know how these things affect the character they love.  Yes, you have to include enough detail to make the setting and the story accurate.  You have to use enough jargon to make your character sound like he really is a doctor or a biochemist.  But in the end, it’s not the technical stuff that will be interesting.

It’s the characters.

I find that aspiring novelists who are highly educated or intensely cerebral have trouble understanding what makes popular culture tick.  They’re good at writing elegant phrases that have no emotional content.  They think that anything else smacks of melodrama, and good heavens, that’s like watching that horrid Jerry Springer!

Well, imagine this.  You’re sitting in Starbucks, and the couple at the table to your left is having a deep discussion about the merits of Proust.  And the couple on your right is arguing about the affair that one of them is having.  Which couple would you listen to?

There’s a reason Jerry Springer was so popular.

No matter how unusual your occupation, no matter how much you know about quarks and ion propulsion and string theory, if your novel isn’t at heart about people and their conflicts with each other, then it’s not going to hold our attention.  Yeah, string theory may be interesting — but how does it affect the lives of John and Jane Doe? 

A lot of us don’t have what could be called “interesting” jobs.  Some of us have downright boring jobs.  But we do know what it’s like to grow up, to argue with our parents, to fall in love, to care about a cause that’s bigger than ourselves.  We know what it’s like to lose someone. 

We know what it’s like to be human.

And really, that’s all you need to know to write a book.