Sarah Jane Riordan

Has anybody told you that before? A teacher, maybe? Alongside ‘show, don’t tell’, ‘write what you know’ has got to be one of the more common maxims tossed out there for aspiring authors.

It’s well-meaning advice, the idea behind it being that a person will more convincingly, more immersively describe ‘what they know’ and thus render it more vivid, more ‘real’ to the reader.

I have never agreed. Fiction is fiction. It’s a product of the imagination. It is, by definition, made up. If Tolkien had restricted himself to writing what he knew, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ would have effectively been a Milly-Molly-Mandy story, only set in Oxford with an all adult cast.

I refuse to restrict myself to writing what I know, because, in contrast to my relatively sedate everyday life, the inside of my head has always been a wild and joyous place to be – I have things to say, and I want to share them with you!