Ripped From The Headlines

I look to the news. I’ve been a news junkie for as long as I can remember. I love the immediacy of the news, the unpredictability, and the importance. Let me give you a powerful, painful example. Right now the world is in the midst of the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. Those refugees are a lot more than statistics. They’re human beings. And they’re desperate to survive.

This is not Nicholas Sparks-land. It’s life or death every day. Imagine creating a family of refugees – mother, father, three children, a grandmother — each with individual needs, dreams, demons and secrets. Now imagine following that family in their epic quest for survival, safety, and fulfillment. I think we will see some great novels in the coming years that are set against this fearsome background.

My bailiwick is closer to home. The Candidate is book two in my Erica Sparks series. Erica is a television journalist and the books are set in the tense, competitive, up-to-the-minute world of a cable news network, a world I know well. The narratives are driven by fictional world events that closely (and sometimes not so closely) resemble real world events. These real stories fire my imagination. They just have such innate power, precisely because there is so much at stake.

As writers, of course, we get to play God. We get to pick who wins elections and who has an extramarital affair in the middle of the campaign. We get to create deliciously twisted villains, colorful minor characters, and fascinatingly flawed protagonists. We get to slow down the action, and then speed it up. All in service of writing a pulsing page turner. Knowing that my story mirrors the real news gets my adrenaline surging, makes the journey feel relevant and intriguing. And my muse delivers a fresh dose of inspiration every day.

Another writer’s passion may be the machinations of the local PTA. Great psychological thrillers have been set against mundane backgrounds. The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin’s classic of conformity and horror, is set in a generic suburb.

Where does your passion lay? Find that sweet spot and you’ll be on your way!

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Lis Wiehl, author of The Candidate: A Newsmaker Novel is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen novels. She is a Harvard Law School graduate and has served as a federal prosecutor in the state of Washington and as a tenured faculty member at The University Washington School of Law. She is currently a popular legal analyst and commentator for the Fox News Channel.

For more information visit her Website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.