I suppose as long as we have people who write, we will have readers who ask, “Where do you get the ideas for your stories?” and some of us will make a stab at answering. This is my version: Some of my best story ideas come from that social no-no EAVESDROPPING. Yes, I know it’s rude. And I was taught not to do it. But what can a storyteller do? You’re having a quiet lunch, the people at the table behind you–total strangers–mention the excitement at a recent wedding when the bride suddenly refused to say “I do’ . Well,I don’t know about you but when it happened to me, the next thing I did was dash home and make notes for ELOPEMENT FOR ONE before I forgot the details. I had a lot of fun finding out why the bride ran away and who she ran to.

Another great place for story ideas to take root is off-beat little feature stories in the local newspaper. I think small town newspapers are the best for this kind of inspiration because they print personal stories that aren’t news-worthy in the metropolitan press. Small town newspapers will give the reader the total guest list of a recent party or a button-by-button description of the gown Mrs. Hoopenlooper wore to the Knights of Columbus ball. The reader gets intimate tours of the engagement parties, baby showers, and small celebrations that are part of daily life. From a small town paper I learned about a valiant librarian who was defying civic leaders and refusing to remove a popular book from the shelves. Outraged mothers were insisting the book was endangering the moral fiber of the young people who might read it and discover–mercy on us–sex, sin and rock-a-billy music. In that librarian’s stand I found the basis of the story that became DON’T CALL ME DARLIN’. I’ve always been grateful to librarians for broadening my world.

One place I’ve found to be a gold mine of possible story ideas is the much maligned family reunion. Just get a group of older aunties together and listen. Sitting quietly in a corner, forgotten and ignored, I’ve heard enough family scandal to supply the cornerstone of a ten book series. By the time I’ve figured out why Aunt M doesn’t speak to Uncle J or how it was that Cousin BB had a baby that looked just like Cousin DB’s husband, whole plots, subplots and sequels are falling into place. The bits and pieces of one such reunion gave me the underlying story for the new book CRY AGAINST THE WIND coming out next year. Hope the dear old aunties don’t recognize the source of that one.

Don’t overlook personal experience as a source worth developing. When I was a small girl I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. Granddaddy had a little country band and a radio show on Saturday morning. One of my great treats was to go to the radio station with him and watch the ‘fellers’ do their show. While searching for a way to connect Evie and Dallas, the heroine and hero of BLACK RAIN RISING, I remembered my early trips to that tiny radio station and made it the center location of the book. Thanks for the memories, Granddad.  Writing the book gave me a chance to borrow back a treasured moment from my childhood.

Finally I find that my own hobbies and interests offer a hook that will support a story. I’ve been a classic car enthusiast since I fell in love with a TR-3–the boy who drove it was secondary. I attend car events, belong to a club that puts on classic car shows, and find myself avidly listening to people who own those pieces of engineering art. Out of that fascination I built the story about the disappearing groom and his 55 T-bird that became HALF PAST MOURNING.  I owe a lot of people many thanks for taking the time to help me understand the finer points of driving and how a road rally is planned. Hobbies or passions are ripe for harvesting for story ideas. I’d bet any organization devoted to a collective interest is full of quirky characters just waiting to be plugged into a story.

Where do story ideas come from? Well, perhaps they wait to rain down out of the atmosphere. They may lurk in high school annuals. Some can be overheard in elevators between floors. Possibly they are picked up from  casual encounters in the grocery store. Now I’ve told the absolute truth about where my ideas come from, but I’ve only told it to other writers. Needless to say, when a reader asks, I’m never going to admit my inspiration is anything as mundane as a family reunion or an old newspaper. What do you tell people when they ask the inevitable question?

Fleeta Cunningham

Don’t Call Me Darlin’

Black Rain Rising

Elopement for One

Half Past Mourning

Cry Against the Wind (forthcoming)

Do you get asked that question as often as I do? Most of the time I try to dodge the query because I hate to admit that I really don’t know where the ideas come from. But when the question comes from my only granddaughter Bunny Rabbit, and she’s really interested—really, really wants to know—I try to give her a reasonable answer.  So after much thinking, a couple of glasses of Riesling, and some internal dialog I wouldn’t want quoted, this is what I tell her.  My stories come from the question “What if…”  As in “What if Cinderella’s step sisters were sweet and loving, and little Cindy was the demanding, selfish, nasty-tempered one?” Or “What if Prince Rudolph, younger brother of Prince Charming, was arranging a convenient accident for his older brother and bride Cindy so Rudolph could usurp the throne from his kingly but incompetent papa?” See what evil things can happen when a romance writer and her feverish imagination take a hatchet to a perfectly good fairy tale! That’s where the ideas come from, just asking ‘what if’. Bunny Rabbit seems satisfied with the answer.

Okay, I explained that source of inspiration—or desperation—to my delightful descendant and think I’m home free, but her next question (the child is sixteen and not easily sent off to play) tells me otherwise.  “So how do you make up all those gooey, sweet love scenes where the guy looks into the girl’s eyes and the moon shines on her hair, and everything is love and roses? How do you know how to write that stuff?” Now that takes more than a glass of wine and some sidestepping. After all I’m her grandmother. I can’t tell her that those scenes are based on personal experience. Her mother would be appalled—or more embarrassing, howl hysterically. And wonderful Miss Rabbit would be amazed that someone in her dotage (that would be me) could even remember such events, much less admit experiencing them. So, what else? I lie. (I do lie for a living you know, making up stories and all, so I think I can get away with it.) I tell her that certain things—the scent of honeysuckle, a phrase from an old song, the taste of a fountain Coke, the sight of a ’57 Chevrolet, the feel of chiffon across my skin—will bring back a memory and I can build scene from that memory. She gets quiet and I think I’m home free—Not!

I realize I’m not getting off that easy because the next words out of her mouth are, “What song? What’s chiffon? A fountain Coke? What’s that? An old car? Why?” And I find that since I’m really good at telling a story, I could probably slither out of this by telling her it’s literary license or trade secrets or something. Somehow my memories demand the truth. So I tell her: The scent of honeysuckle always takes me back to my grandmother’s front porch and reminds me of the boy who walked me back from Sunday school. We’d sit on the porch for hours talking about ‘when we’re grown up …’ and all the things we planned to do. He’d direct movies that I wrote. We’d live in Hollywood and know all the stars.  The smell of honeysuckle fills my mind with the dreams two young people had—age ten or twelve—that didn’t come true, at least not for one of us because that sweet youngster died long ago and his dreams died with him. From that memory I can build one of those love-and-flowers moments because the scent of honeysuckle takes me right back –right back to a brown-eyed boy with plans bigger than he was, with hopes that soared above the flat Texas plains, with a heart too fragile to live in a place full of broken dreams.

The old song, Party Doll, was my song, played for me at any dance, regularly requested from our local DJ, and warped from all the turns around my stereo. I hear it and I’m instantly seventeen, high on life, excited about graduation and college, and in love—for real, Mom, really, really in love—for the first time. Can I pull a love scene for a story out of that? You know it, my little bunny rabbit. Give me six bars and I’ll show you the Lindy hop, the Tina spin, and take you back to the old malt shop—or in our case the Carnation Soda Fountain.

Fountain Cokes, with a squirt of cherry syrup, never tasted like any other Coke. They’re pretty rare these days. But when I find the chance to sample one, I’m right back at the old Student Union building on my college campus. The red-haired boy on the other side of the table, probably with a straw in the same glass as mine, is telling me he’s leaving. Graduation is two days away, he’s signed his papers, and he’ll be wearing Air Force blue to the graduation dance. In a few weeks he’ll be flying recon over Viet Nam. We’ve been seeing each other—yes, Mom, it really is love—for quite a while, but I have two more years before I graduate. He says it isn’t fair for him to ask me for a commitment when there’s no guarantee he’ll come back. It isn’t fair to me. But leaving me with no promise, no future, no ring, that’s fair? No, not fair, not right, and what’s Viet Nam anyway? And so the taste of that sweet cherry Coke, different when it come from a fountain, can take me back to that agonizing moment when my first love put on his pilot’s wings and went away. Write a love scene from that memory? Goodness, Bunny Rabbit, that one still makes me cry.

Now what about that old car? That ’57 Chevy? Oh my, does that take me back. It belonged to the roommate of that future Air Force officer. And it was perfect for double dates—big enough to hold four, two in front and two in back, with a picnic basket, or heavy winter coats, or the hoop skirts necessary for a formal dance. It was usually piled with books, running on bald tires, and gassed up by the spare change recovered from behind, beneath, and between the seats. Gas cost us nineteen cents a gallon and a dollar an hour was good pay. I had my first kiss in the backseat of the date-mobile and told my first love goodbye from there as well. Any wonder there’s usually a classic car included in my stories? Wish I could tell all the stories that tuck-and-roll upholstery witnessed—or then again, maybe not.

What is chiffon? Oh, darling Bunny Rabbit, how could you not know about chiffon, that silky, sheer, misty fabric that made headscarves to hold hair in place in a sports car, and peignoirs to cover our baby-doll pajamas, and shimmering skirts for our party dresses and wedding gowns? The cascade of chiffon, the rustle of it over a swirl of taffeta, carries me right back to my wedding, standing in the bride’s dressing room, watching my girlfriends slip into pale pink, ballerina length dresses, feeling your great grandmother pin my veil in place, hearing the giggles and chatter suddenly stop as the door opens and my dad says, “It’s time.” Can I pull enough of those memories together to spin a story? Can I make a scene of the blood rushing in my veins, the shiver in my heart as I stand at the end of the aisle, the narrowing vision as I take the first step toward a new life?  If not, I’ll hang up my keyboard.

My stories, Miss Bunny Rabbit, come from trying to create a new way of saying “Once upon a time…”. The moonlight and roses love scenes come, not really from my own experience, but the emotions rising up at a poignant moment. They are tied to the sensations triggered when my senses remember. I can take what I felt and transfer those feelings to the character I’m writing about. I don’t have to sit in the moonlight with Mary Jane and Jack to know what they’re  feeling. I don’t have to hear the words to know what they say. It’s been going on for a long, long time. All I have to do is let my reader catch a glimmer in the shadows. Love, though every couple sees it as new and feels it is unique just to them, is universal, Bunny Rabbit. That’s how I try to write it.

Fleeta Cunningham

Dear Santa,

I hope things are going well for you this holiday season and that you have a well-earned vacation planned starting on the 26th. We’re doing well — hope you like chocolate star cookies.

So about my Christmas list. With the blessings of a comfortable home and the health of my immediate family, I can’t think of a lot of material things to ask for. However, there are a few items I could use as a writer.  If you could see fit to leave at least some of them for me, that would be fantastic. I’ve tried to be the best writer I can all year, working on my craft and typing or writing pages faithfully. (I’m not saying how good the pages are, mind you.)

1. A gerundectomy. I have no idea why I love ‘ing’ words so much, but it’s really getting depressing  (OMG, see???) to review pages and find scads of the buggers on every page. Please, Santa, please keep me from falling back on gerunds when I write. (Great, I did it again.)

2. Focus. I’m better at this, but I still get distracted when I shouldn’t. That darn internet is a two-edged sword. I’ve found some great research sites, but it’s soooo easy to spend too much time on social media, or worse, computer games!

3. Binders, paper and my favorite pens. You know how much writing by hand helps me when I’m stuck or when I need to avoid the internet.  And I always need to organize research, character autobiographies, timelines and new ideas.

4. More shelves!! For the binders & those new books I can’t seem to resist. (Honest, I have good reasons at the time when I purchase them. I promise.)

5. Large chunks of uninterrupted time. This one may be a challenge, but I could really use days where I don’t have to stop and do anything for anybody. No school pickup, no meals to fix, no activities to drive to. I don’t want to get rid of my family, but when the words flow, it would be nice not to have to stop.

6. Characters that always talk to me and each other! Why must they stand there and stare at each other? Or have conversations like, ‘Wow, it’s been awhile.’ and ‘Yeah, what are you up to these days?’ Seriously, it’s hard to be productive when your characters clam up.

7. Inspiration. And I’m not talking sunsets or Zen. I write romances and that means I need some smoking hot heroes.  It would be huge help to my process if you could periodically arrange for some of the following to show up at my door: Gerard Butler, Hugh Jackman, Matt Bomer and Toby Stephens will do for starters. I wouldn’t turn my nose up at Sean Bean either. If you need any other ideas, I’m sure Mrs. Claus can give you some useful suggestions. The guys don’t need to stay around for a long time.  I just want to look at them.

8. Chocolate.

Anyway, that does it for this year. I strongly urge you to consider my wishes, big guy. Just remember the old saying: “Always be nice to writers, or they’ll put you in their next book.”

Love, Ann

PS: The winner of my goody bag is Tiffany Green! Contact me at AnnStephensRomance@gmail.com with your address.