Inspiration and incubation = authentic stories

Write what you know. 

It’s classic advice for writers and storytellers. Personal experience lends to the authenticity of the tale you are telling.  This doesn’t mean all stories need to be autobiographies. For most of us, that would be very boring.  Not sure you want to hear about my life as a suburban mom of three kids. So if you don’t like sci-fi fandom, it’s probably not a great idea for you to write an epic astronaut adventure. If you know nothing about 18th century London, historical fiction is probably not for you either. For me though, it’s romance. I think I have been pretty clear, I like happy endings you find in romance books (see March’s Blog for more on happy endings), so I write love stories in authentic-feeling small-towns.  

But where do I get my ideas? The short answer is EVERYWHERE. Continue reading for the long answer. 

In our first book, Rossi’s Cottage there is a scene where our female main character (Sarah) hits a groundhog while driving. Pretty mundane event, right? But what makes it relevant to our storyline is her reaction to hitting the groundhog. She cries. Not just a passing tear on her way home. Our male main character (Austin) finds her stopped at the scene of the tragedy, teary and is a witness to her tenderheartedness. Where did this idea come from? Real life. Who thinks of roadkill as a plot point? Me apparently. 

The first and only time I hit a groundhog I cried. Like waterfall tears and sobbing. I had to pull over and I think I even called my Mom. I knew my tears weren’t a typical reaction to something that happens on rural roads in Ontario daily. Evidence of critters being hit by cars is a common sight on highways. I worked in a rural community and regularly drove by everything roadkill; including deer, wild turkeys, and skunks. But I had never been responsible for a poor rodent's demise. Now you can ask my family, I am a sucker for any animal (except snakes), particularly those that are furry and cuddly (cue the joke about my bearded husband). So being responsible for killing one was heart-breaking to me. Depressingly, my groundhog extermination happened right near my house so I drove by it quite a few times before it was cleaned up. Needless to say, the event stuck with me.  

Twenty years later, while I’m writing my own book, I start brainstorming opening scenes. Not sure why or how, but I kept thinking of my groundhog incident. Wouldn’t it make a great meet/cute? A meet/cute is a funny, charming, sometimes unusual incident that brings your two main characters together. The groundhog incident is a common enough occurrence that it’s relatable. Although I cried, most people are not devastated by the event, and with the right sense of humour, it’s a little funny (not the roadkill itself but Sarah’s reaction to it).   

Now it didn’t end up being Austin and Sarah’s meet/cute but when I wanted to illustrate Sarah’s tenderheartedness, it fit perfectly. Crying over roadkill is a creative way to ensure the reader knows Sarah is compassionate, without me writing “Sarah is a compassionate person”. This is ‘showing’ not ‘telling’ you the reader, another ubiquitous piece of writing advice. Writing about the roadkill also gave the opportunity for Austin to do something helpful and essentially take care of the accident for her, showing his kindness. It was not an exact retelling of my experience but elements of my experience informed the story. 

In our second book, Flames and Frazer, our male main character, Connor, is a fire fighter and he has a scene near the beginning where he uses the jaws of life to get someone out of a crushed car. His inner dialogue acknowledges that he loves tearing apart nice cars when their drivers are assholes (and not really hurt). Where did this come from? While writing this scene that included the jaws of life, my chaotic brain remembered a passing comment about a distant relative of mine who was a fire fighter and loved using the destructive machinery to rip apart cars, the more expensive the car the better. When I needed to add depth to Connor’s character in the beginning of the book, I turned to the random passing comment. As a counterpoint to his straight-laced, rule-following demeanor, having Connor find joy in destroying an asshole’s car made him seem more real.  

So you might be wondering, do I base my characters on real people or other famous characters? Nope, or at least not entirely. And usually it’s accidental. Yes, you will find a great deal of me in Sarah and some of my other female main characters, it’s hard not to lean towards personality traits you are familiar with. But each character is distinct because of the mix of  details that come from a wide range of sources, books, movies, that commercial with the cute puppy and the clydesdales in the snow, as well as flesh and blood humans I know or meet in passing. In Flames and Frazer, the female main character, Beth, is a medical professional who is bubbly and blonde. While developing her character, I kept getting flashes of Izzy Stevens from Grey’s Anatomy. I didn’t want a carbon copy of Izzy, it would be dishonest to copy someone else's character, but I added that Beth would be a little clumsy (think first season Izzy) and the flaw made her a little more human.

In story-telling, I find that if I string together a few real events or details and sprinkled them with a great deal of whatever my brain produces at the time, I end up with a story or character that feels authentic. I don’t think this is much different from other writers, it just depends on what bits of reality fit with which bits of imagination, like a puzzle that becomes what I create rather than what’s on the front of the box. So, I guess this is a heads up to all, I just might use the tiniest bit of reality, spin it, twist it, and use it in my stories. You’ve been warned.