write what you don’t know

One of the most common pieces of writing advice we often hear as beginners is “Write what you know.” But what does that even mean? And is it actually good advice?

If I had taken that suggestion literally, my first novel would have been about a man in his late twenties with a day job as a media coordinator at Lifetime Television who was writing a novel about the action-packed world of file transfers, video conversions, and women’s programming. Riveting. Perhaps readers would have been drawn in...