What's Your Story's Story?

How did you come to be writing your book? What inspired your story?

I was speaking to a friend recently, someone I've known since I was a child, and although our paths have parted, we've always held faith with one truth in our lives - we are writers.

Recently, she started to write a novel. We've discussed its development over the phone and one thing became clear the more we talked - the inspiration for her novel is linked back to the loss of a well loved individual in her life, not necessarily the loss itself but the place in her mind and her younger life that the experience has led her to remember.

The result is that she has an inspiring story to tell to an agent or a publisher about how her novel came about when she decides to seek publication, with a defined theme too.

That got me thinking about my own novel and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that I don't have that same inspirational clarity. I honesty can't tell you what inspired me to create my characters or my story. I have no idea how the story has evolved from its beginnings to where it is now.

Maybe this is the challenge of living with a story for so long. I've visited the world of my novel for so many years that I've internalised it all to the point where I take it for granted. I know it too well.

Two questions that agent Lucy Morris posed when I met with her at the Chester Literature Festival were how did I come to be writing my novel and what were its themes? I stumbled over answering both questions.

I'm still throwing this challenge around in my head, and although I don't want these musings to get in the way of working on my novel, I do need to have answers before I begin the process of approaching literary agents in the autumn.

What about you writers out there? Do you find it easy to explain the inspiration for your writing and their themes?