many years ago I read a few books By Edgar Rice Boughes<sp> not sure if I spelled his last name right ---but it was a book about Mars ---it had no believable things in it but was pure imagination ----Was Star Wars belivable?
How about Super Man? if you have the imagination you can make people believe ---Dale Brown now writes books with futuristic weapons ---that are not really believable but I love the books ----
Stories from the imagination are for people who have imagination ---who can see beyond reality ----yesterdays Si Fi is todays reality anyway ---lol
but even if you write about what you know ---if you can not see it in your own mind and imagine it happening ---then how can you put it on paper without it being dry facts ----I see many stories that would be better if there was more detail ---if someone was seeing it and acting it out in their mind---
some people can take worn out subjects ---and make a completely new story out of them ---while others can take the same subject and it comes out the same old thing as eveyone else has writen
so yes I do think the most important thing in a writer is imagination