What's The Story Behind The Story?

A lot of authors get asked the same question. “How did you come up with the idea for your story?” So it only stands to reason you’ve been curious to know how I came up with the idea for my story.

No? Not really? Never crossed your mind?

Okay. Well. I’m going to answer the question anyway, because I’m sure afterward you’ll be glad you asked. (I know. You didn’t ask. But let’s not get hung up on semantics at this point.)

His voice. His music. His occasional shout at two in the morning. “If you’re going to leave, at least put your pants on!” That was the extent of my interaction with the new neighbor who’d moved into the apartment below me several months earlier. 

He lived his life. I lived mine. And not once since he’d moved into the small building we shared with two other tenants did our lives intersect. Not once while we checked for mail at the entrance. Not once while we tossed in a load of laundry in the basement. Not once.

For months, this guy lived directly beneath me, and for months, I had no idea what he looked like. I was the only tenant who parked in a driveway at the front of the building—my seniority perk for having rented there the longest. Everyone else parked in the back. We simply never crossed paths.

And yet, I was pretty sure I had this new guy pegged. Especially after the night of the “If you’re going to leave, at least put your pants on!” shouting match. After overhearing his muffled voice and taste in music for months, I had even developed a picture inside my head of what he must look like. So much so, if you’d asked me to pick him out of a police lineup, I would have straightened my shoulders and approached the endeavor with full confidence, perhaps forgetting that I’d never actually seen him before.

Because I knew this guy. Right? Sure, I did. Knew him like the back of my hand.

Then one day my apartment doorbell rang. Which was strange. The outside door to the apartment building was always locked, so why would my doorbell ring unless . . . oh. It had to be one of my apartment neighbors. Inside. At my door. And for some reason, I don’t know why, but I had a feeling it was the guy from downstairs.

Well, good. Maybe this was our chance to finally discover some footing as neighborly neighbors.

I opened the door to find a young man standing at the top of the stairs with his hands meekly clasped. “Hi,” he said. “I’m your downstairs neighbor.”

Are you sure? I wanted to say. Because you look nothing like the downstairs neighbor I’ve never seen before. 

He went on to say what a pleasure it was to meet me. I told him likewise. We chatted briefly about how crazy it was we’d never run into each other before now. Then he informed me he was moving out the next day and wondered if he could use the front driveway for his moving truck. 

Shoot. And here I thought we’d made such wonderful progress in becoming neighborly neighbors.

After assuring him that using the driveway would be fine, he thanked me, again saying how nice it was to meet me, this time with a weird expression on his face. Two steps down the stairs, he turned as I was starting to close the door. And now I could tell the expression he wore wasn’t weird. It was confused. 

“How come all this time I thought you were a little old lady?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he shook his head, then disappeared down the steps. 

The next day he moved out, and I’ve never seen him again. I don’t think. (Considering I only saw his face once and I don’t really remember what that face looked like, I should probably decline picking him out of a police lineup if the situation arises.)

Brief as that interaction was, it stayed with me. Why did he think I was a little old lady? At the time I was still in my twenties. 

Perhaps he’d overheard my Billie Holiday album playing on occasion. Perhaps he’d seen my cat in the window. Perhaps he’d heard my tea kettle whistle a time or two. Who knows? But somehow, without ever laying eyes on me, he pictured me as a little old lady. And let’s face it, at heart I am a little old lady.

Maybe that’s why that scenario amused me so much. He’d pegged me without actually pegging me.

Years later, when I sat down to write my first romantic comedy, I knew I wanted to work this situation into my story. But one character under the wrong impression the other character was elderly didn’t seem enough. 

What if both characters had made the same wrong assumption? And what if instead of an apartment building, they shared a house together without ever meeting? How would that work? How could I make it believable? How long until they figured it out? Then what happened after they figured it out?

Well, friends, answering those questions is what introduced me to two characters I now love dearly, named Henry and Edith. I’ve had so much fun writing their story, and I cannot wait for you to meet them in my novel next year. 

And if next year feels to you the same way it does to me, like an absolute eternity away, be patient. Hang tight. Don’t leave. Unless you need to leave. In that case, I offer you the same wise advice I once overheard many years ago—“At least put your pants on!”