Writing about what you know versus about what you've read

I was starting to create the character for the exercise of the Start writing fiction -course, when I realized how easily I would like to slip into things I myself had read.
Let me explain to you the background of this realization. A couple of days ago I had watched the TED talk from the writer, novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie "The danger of a single story". (I absolutely love TED talks, and I definitely recommend hers.)

Her talk was really inspiring, she talked  about how she was writing exactly the kind of stories she was reading although they didn't have much in common with her own life. Chimamanda Adichies talk brings to the front that there isn't just one story forming our lives, for example not only the negative experiences but also the good ones. If one takes only one component of something and makes a story out of that, that only creates stereotypes. Stories that aren't the whole truth, stories that are incomplete, only a part of the whole.

I read a lot of western books, English, German, Finnish. But mostly American and English. And when I started creating my own character from scrap I noticed how I put the surroundings into England, and the time into middle age. Why? Because I have read books where that was so, even though I myself have never been in England.

I am not saying that it is wrong, or not good to write about things you don't know about. (quite the opposite, things would be quote dull if people would only write about things they knew.) And I also realize that there is a big difference in the cultural background from Chimamanda Adichi and me.

Still, it made me think why I wouldn't write more about surroundings familiar to me. Why wouldn't I write something that happened in Finland or even Germany? Why did I want to write things like I had read them, not like I know them? It just didn't feel as appealing to me. It is perhaps more difficult to write something opposed to what you have yourself read, something you have "only" lived.

But because of these thoughts I decided to make the conscious decision to place my character in Finland. Let's see how that will work out.

Kim A. Dreamreich