Where do i get my ideas from???

Writers are often asked where they get their ideas and as much as this question becomes repetitive, I still understand why it is asked – if some Harlequin writers are producing four books a year and have written for ten years, that is forty completed novels from forty nuggets of inspiration.

How do they do that?

Even as a writer, I sometimes wonder where my ideas come from but for the most part I get them from TV shows or books. And no, before you think it, I do not steal those ideas but rather use them to kick start the famous ‘what if’ game.

So if I enjoy or hate an episode of a drama or soap and I’m looking for a new story idea, I will grab a pen and paper and scribble down the pros and cons of the story as it stands and THEN I scribble down as much as I can think of how I would have changed it if I had written it myself.

The result is that more often than not, I come up with three or four possible story ideas from a single episode of say, Brothers & Sisters of which not a single one resembles the original premise at all. Great, huh?

So then that begs the question of how this method works for me when I write erotic romance rather than mainstream – simple, I establish the story line and then turn up the heat from the very first page! Erotic romance is not that different than mainstream romance, the readers just want more heat and steam but all the other elements needs to be thoroughly explored too.

Take my first release Explicitly English, it was inspired by an episode of a UK period drama yet ended up being a contemporary romance between an interior designer and a stockbroker. The link? The English country setting and the train journey, the rest as they say is history! Here’s the blurb:

Laura Markham needs to forget - just for awhile. Be someone else for change - live as her parents will never have the chance to. And for Laura, that means leaving the City for the English countryside and doing just what the hell she feels like…wherever she feels like doing it…

British stockbroker, Stephen Cambridge knows by going home to his country retreat two days early, he's likely to surprise his contracted interior designer. And when he finds out she's the woman who performed the solo masterbation show for him on the inward bound journey, Stephen will do anything to further convince her to miss the outward bound train and stay with him forever…

Buy link:

http://www.wilderroses.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=86&products_id=790

Erotic romance is a sub-genre that people are sometimes embarrassed to talk about yet it is the highest selling of all romances. So the ideas, the sensuality, the sexuality and the danger of them only adds to the thrill a mainstream romance can bring. Why wouldn’t they be more popular? Makes complete sense to me.

For any aspiring erotic romance writers reading this, or any published mainstream writers who are considering trying erotic, go for it! The process to me is no different but the results infinitely so…and of course, climactically satisfying time and time again… ; )

Rachel x