Do you know Lincoln's Gettysburg Address?

It's a joke, of course. "Do you know Lincoln's Gettysburg Address?"

I first heard it on television many years ago, as a child, actually. I think it was on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. The punchline is: "I didn't know he moved."

To get the joke, you need a modicum of knowledge of U.S. history and even as a child I got it. And later, as an adult, I used the joke as the baseline (and a low baseline, at that) for determining whether a person had any understanding or knowledge of history. You'd be amazed at the number of people who don't.

As a writer, you need to hit the sweet spot between people's knowledge and understanding of your topic or subject, and your presentation of something new and imaginative. Lean too far on the former and the reader will get bored and stop reading. Can't have that.

But to lean too heavily on the latter could result in the reader lacking context. And again, the reader could stop reading. Can't have that.

My beta readers -- a select group of friends and colleagues and others -- like my writing, which is great. Members of my critique group are great at pointing out problems in both my writing and storytelling.

But as a fiction writer, I am still insecure. Am I giving my reader something new and imaginative but without a context they can understand? Am I just writing what others have written before? I truly don't know.

I was much more confident as a reporter. I generally knew what I wrote hit the mark. But fiction seems so much more subjective, although I know it's not.

 Anyway, I'm working on it. But in the meantime, do you know Lincoln's Gettysburg Address?

Thanks for reading.