Want to Know a Secret?
Suspense Author Kimberley Troutte Tells All Where Her Story Ideas Come From
I’ve been doing this writing gig since the start of this millennium. One of my favorite things is talking to readers. The top two questions I am consistently asked are—“Where do you get your ideas for your books?”—and with my fulltime day job, kids, husband, pets, bills, and life—“When do you find time to write?”
I don’t have time to answer both, since I am on deadline to turn in book number 5 in the INFILTRIX series, so let’s go with story ideas. Where in the world do my crazy adventure ideas come from?
The answer is as simple as it is complicated.
To me, the universe is like a fire glowing all around us, ripe for igniting the imagination and creativity. Experiences from my own life, articles I read, and intriguing news reports have all been the embers that have sparked my suspense books.
Let me give you a few examples.
My youngest son was born partially deaf. He had one perfect ear. The other sweet little ear had no hole! Without an ear canal, the bones that help produce sound could not work properly. He could hear well with the other ear but without stereo-sound, a mother always worries her son won’t hear cars coming from the deaf side, or catch everything taught in class. When the ear surgeon at UCLA created an ear canal for him and moved the inner ear workings into place, my five-year old boy woke up from surgery hearing out of both ears for the first time in his life. I was fall-down-on-my-knees grateful.
The experience inspired a story idea. What if a mother and son are hiding for their lives in an offbeat town when the boy becomes famous from an ear surgery which allows him to hear God? Voilà! The ember of a book. Next was to determine who would help the mother and who would get in her way as we figure out why she is hiding in the first place.
When my other son was in high school, we were in a coffee shop slash book store reading about new up and coming careers. I was intrigued by one new career described as extreme travel where not your mama’s travel agents create dangerous and thrilling adventures for clients. Because of the risk, most of these adventures are expensive and not for the faint of heart.
I definitely wanted one of my characters to have this career. And then what? How could I make her job the most challenging possible?
What if her clients—a famous father with his young kids—go missing while on a trip our heroine has arranged for them? Or better yet, what if they are taken hostage? Maybe they’ve been captured and held for ransom or political reasons. Oh! What if they are snatched and taken deep into the jungles during political unrest and a war breaks out? How in the world can she rescue them now? Only one team can do it—a SEAL team. But how does she get them involved? Well, she knows a guy in the SEALS, okay, she loved a super sexy Lt Col. once, but they didn’t exactly end on the best of terms. Truthfully, he probably thinks of her as enemy number one right now. But she needs him, desperately, in more ways than one. Dangerous, sexy, adventure ensues.
All from reading one article about an interesting career.
The Infiltrix Series
Finally, my current series is a cautionary tale ignited from current events. I have always loved spy stories. Bourne Trilogy, Alias, The Americans are all my favorites.
I wanted a character who lives deeply undercover with the enemy and performs covert missions to save lives. Who would her enemy be? Hey! What if the enemy is us? Look at the discord in the nation now. It’s not too much of a stretch, is it?
What if in the future we have limited supplies due to extreme weather changes? What if we fight each other over food in our pantries? A second horrific civil war could erupt. Spoiler alert: No one really wins in a civil war. What if the outcome is disastrous because the United States as we know it has become a deadly militant dictatorship. Freedom, human rights, and democracy are all gone.
Can you imagine the US becoming like Russia? Or North Korea? I can and did. But I also created a team who fights for democracy and is led by one woman living with her deadly enemies—the Infiltrix. Life or death missions ensue.
Those are three examples of how my brain works when I am writing. Stories are literally everywhere. If I feel inspired, intrigued, or even scared, I imagine a character living in that scenario. Then I play with it and try to see how I can make the world the character lives even more intense. Conflict keeps the story moving and the pages turning. And then I go to work on building the team around our heroine and hero so they have support when they are going through the fire.
The embers for stories can be found everywhere in our glowing universe. One just needs to snatch something hot and ask the question: “What if…?”
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Kimberley Troutte is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. She has been a Top 100 Amazon author and a Top 10 Romantic Suspense bestselling author for Amazon. Kimberley was a finalist in both the Vivian® and the RITA®–the highest awards for excellence in romance. She lives in Southern California with her husband, two sons, a wild cat, an old snake, and all the other creatures that hubby and boys rescue.
To learn more about her novels, please visit her at www.kimberleytroutte.com
THE PACKAGE
In the deadly future after the second civil war, the United States is divided and dangerous…
Agent Heather Slade is a beautiful well-crafted fake. A perfect lie. A highly-trained asset with no country, no memory, and no home. She spies for a secretive group of Revo agents from the democratic Free States and fights against the crushing power of the charismatic authoritarian leader who controls the militant Patriot regions. Risking her life, she infiltrates top levels of the brutal government and lives deeply under cover with her enemies.
Heather’s current mission is to smuggle a package from under the President’s nose onto a highly guarded golden train and bring it to safety in the Free States. Her partner on the perilous journey is a handsome but inexperienced foreign agent with secrets of his own. Why is Miguel Robles so hauntingly familiar? He might hold the key to finding the family she no longer remembers—if they survive the mission.
BUY HERE
Category: On Writing
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