What do you think about the writing only what you know? If you’re a reader, how enjoyable would books be if authors stick to what they know? As those loaded questions may already suggest, my enthusiasm for the “write what you know” oft-spouted advice wanes to the max.

Here’s my first Tweetable thought on the subject:

If I wrote only what I know I'd write very little indeed. I write what I feel compelled to write. #driventowrite #amwriting

— Eduardo Suastegui (@imagesbyeduardo) August 4, 2014

My basic problem with the “write what you know” dictum (or guideline, as some soften it) comes from the fact we leave a lot of story on the table if we strictly limit our writing to what we know or can know through research. Did Tolkien know Middle Earth and all its inner workings before he wrote it, or did he conjure it up first, then as he wrote, he got to know it? How much Science Fiction writing would never come to existence if writers strictly adhered to what they know rather than what they could know?

From another Tweetable thought:

I don't write what I know; I write what I live, feel and imagine. #amwriting #indieauthor #driventowrite

— Eduardo Suastegui (@imagesbyeduardo) August 4, 2014

That “imagine” part in particular determines why I can’t stick to what I know in the dictionary definition of the word. Writing and story-telling in large part rely on the writer’s (and reader’s!) ability to imagine things, events, places, even characters she hasn’t experienced or gotten to know first hand.