Write what your know – or not

It’s the first Wednesday of the month again, time for a post for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

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JULY QUESTION: What would make you quit writing?

MY ANSWER: I would quit writing only if my health prevented me. Otherwise, never. Publishing is another matter. Strangely, it has nothing to do with my health or my writing.

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As my answer to this month’s question is extremely short, I want to introduce another topic. You all know the sage advice many a writing guru give you: WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW. I disagree with it. I’m a speculative fiction writer. I write about magic and spaceships and telepathic squirrels. I don’t know any of it; it’s all imaginary. I make up the details as I go along.

The above adage might be true for contemporary fiction, or for someone writing about the field they specialize in, e.g. a historian writing historical fiction. Or a New Yorker writing a story set in their city. A sideline to this principle would be an in-depth research many historical writers undergo before they set their fiction in a specific place or time. For other genres, like speculative fiction, I’d go with a different maxim: WRITE WHAT YOU WANT TO EXPLORE.

When I wanted to explore the world of shapeshifters, I wrote a fantasy story Tail to Treasure about a shapeshifter monkey. It was published in Bloodbond magazine in 2016.

When I wanted to explore the singing crystals, I wrote a science fiction story about them, or rather about a woman who could hear them sing. Here it is – my novella Crystal Song on wattpad. What about you? Do you write what you know or what you wish to discover? Or a variation of both? Tell me in the comments.