Did I ever tell you about my career in government
service? I worked for an intelligence agency, and one of my assignments had me
going undercover to infiltrate a cartel in Colombia. My investigation helped close
down a major drug pipeline. If I divulged anything more, I’d have to kill you.
If you believed any of
that, we should play poker some time. Actually, some parts are based on fact. I
did work in state government service, but as a case manager for adults with
disabilities. I gained some detailed knowledge of psychotropic drugs, but they
were prescribed by a psychiatrist. And I did conduct investigations, but they
usually involved allegations of abuse, neglect or theft.
We all include bits of our lives or personalities in
our stories or characters whether we realize it or not. I know I’m guilty of dropping
in a personal experience or something funny that happened. It keeps things
real.
When I create a lead character, I tend to weave my
personal beliefs and morals into their fabric. Someone once said “We are all
the heroes of our own stories.” I live vicariously through my fictional
characters because they get to do the things I can’t. My former spy Nick Seven
lives in the Florida Keys with his Barbadian lover, Felicia, and owns a waterfront
bar and restaurant. He gets involved in adventures that are straight out of my
overactive imagination. My private eye hero Vic Fallon does the same thing. He
meets interesting people, many of them attractive females, and gets to play the
tough guy with a conscience, like Rockford or Mannix. Those are very far
removed from my own mundane existence.
Do any of you play the “What if…” game to develop an
idea? I’m reminded of the ‘60s sitcom “Get Smart.” When Mel Brooks and Buck
Henry pitched the concept, they said “What if James Bond and Inspector Clouseau
had a child together?” The result was bumbling secret agent Maxwell Smart. I
used that ploy when I wrote the holiday rom-com “Mistletoe and Palm Trees.” I
had taken a business trip to Florida alone because my traveling companion had
to cancel at the last minute. I thought “What if a guy went to the Keys by
himself because his girlfriend dumped him and he meets a woman who is there
under similar circumstances?” Lo and behold, I had a story concept.
A failed relationship and the adjustments I had to
make to being newly single became fodder for a couple of stories. In “Anywhere
the Heart Goes,” I did an exploratory of a divorced middle-aged guy trying to
cope with modern dating. “Who Gets the Friends?” was practically a blow-by-blow
of my own experience when some of my so-called friends stopped taking my calls
after the divorce. I’ve also explored the cliched girl-that-got-away theme a
few times.
Conversations with fellow writers have revealed that
I’m not the only erotic romance author who has endured the question “How much
of those sex scenes are based on personal experiences?” Being a private person
by nature, my first instinct is to say “None of your damn business!” Instead, I
seized the opportunity to create a little air of mystique. I’ve found that a
grin and a wink can go a long way when that question arises.
Sometimes a casual observation
will wind up as a story idea. I was lunching at a waterfront restaurant once
and noticed some curious activity going on with a yacht that was docked nearby.
My crafty devious mind concocted a wild story about why the servers from the
restaurant took food for four people to the yacht, but I could only see three.
Who was the person inside the cabin with the curtains closed? Were they sick,
or in the country illegally? Was it a celebrity hiding from their fans or the
press? The possibilities were endless. And yes, I did use that as the basis for
my thriller “Catch and Release.”
I’ve discovered that writing fictional adventures can
not only be a good stress reliever, but therapeutic when dealing with personal issues.
Writers tend to draw on their experiences and channel them into what their
characters are going through. There’s a lot of real-life emotion to use in
those scenarios, and it has helped me cope with some problems by imposing them on
my characters. If I couldn’t come up with a solution, maybe they could.
Living your life through your imaginary friends might
not be a bad thing.
Tim Smith is an award-winning bestselling author of romantic mystery/thrillers and contemporary rom-coms. He’s also a freelance writer, blogger and editor. His author page is AllAuthor/Tim Smith
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