What if....

A common question fiction writers are often asked is: “Where do you get your ideas?”

Ideas are all around you - too many to use in one lifetime. Newspapers. Overheard conversations. Friends recounting stories and experiences. But my particular favourite’s genealogy.

Okay, it’s history, and maybe you don’t want to write history. I’d say: try exploring your ancestors’ lives and bringing their stories into this century. Then, play “what if…”

That’s what I did when I unlocked the mysterious background of my father’s maternal grandmother. In the process, I evolved from a writer of short stories and articles to a fully-fledged author of a historical romance novel, The Heart Has Its Reasons. Plus, I got to travel to London, San Francisco and Chicago - in my search for the truth, and found further inspiration by so doing.

More prosaically, I trawled areas of the internet, especially Trove, an online research tool in the National Library of Australia. With its newspaper holdings in particular, it’s highly likely that if your family

goes back more than a generation or so in Australia you’ll find reference to them here. If not, stop awhile and read some of the newspaper articles. You never know what might spark an idea or two. Steven King says: “In a lot of cases, it’s seeing two things and having them come together in some new and interesting way, and then adding the question ‘What if?’”

Told you!

So, with family research completed, the story’s outline percolating (mostly in my head), I began writing Nat and Rachel’s story.

The Heart Has Its Reasons is available for PRE-ORDER by clicking this link https://www.bronwynhouldsworth.com/books

Enjoy.