The Inspiration Behind How To Write A Love Story (How To Write A Love Story Blog Tour)

I'm so excited to be a part of the How To Write A Love Story Blog Tour. I was a huge fan of Katy Cannon's book And Then We Ran, which I read last year, so I couldn't wait to read this latest book.

I also couldn't wait to host a blog post, written by Katy, for this book blog tour.

So, read on to find out what inspired Katy to write this brilliant story...

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The Inspiration Behind How To Write A Love Story

By Katy Cannon

Ideas come from all sorts of funny places, and it can be hard sometimes to pin down exactly where and when the first spark arrived. By the time a book is published, so much work and exploration has gone into it, that often the story bears little resemblance to the original idea.

How To Write A Love Story is not one of those books.

I actually have my agent, Gemma Cooper, to thank for the initial spark. We’d been talking and thinking about ideas for a new YA book for a little while, but nothing had really caught fire in my imagination yet when Gemma took off for a long holiday that involved a really lengthy train journey across country where she had nothing to do but think. Just before she was due to return, she sent me a message:

I have an idea for your YA. I think it’ll speak to your romance head. More next week.

That was it. Cue a full week of speculation and impatience on my end.

What always seems to surprise people (who aren’t writers) is that coming up with ideas for books is the easy part. I can come up with a dozen book ideas before lunch. The hard part is turning that idea into something that will actually make a good book.

Gemma and I have been working together for a lot of years now, and we have a system. One of us has a spark of an idea, and together we bat it back and forth until I can find the story I want to tell. She knows that I brainstorm best when I can talk out loud, and I know she’ll help me weed out the bad ideas so we can focus on the good. We make a good team.

So when Gemma returned, we set up a call, and I barely let her say hello before I demanded to know what the idea was.

“A teenage girl has to write a romance novel for her famous author Gran, but she’s never been kissed.”

Nineteen words, and I was hooked.

You see, as well as writing children’s and YA books, I’m also a romance novelist, under the penname Sophie Pembroke. I know romance books – the tropes, the conventions, the style – and I love them.

This was the perfect book for me to write. Or maybe, I was the perfect person to write this book.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m in. What happens next?”

“Shenanigans ensue?” Gemma suggested. I could almost hear her shrugging. “You’re the writer. You’ll figure it out.”

Clearly, I had a lot of work ahead to make that idea into a book.

We brainstormed together for an hour or more, I wrote up the proposal in an afternoon, then tweaked it a few times before Gemma sent it to my editor – who came back less than twenty four hours later to say ‘We love it! Start writing!’ (That never happens, incidentally.)

I’ve never had a book idea come together so easily. I think it worked so well because it involves all the things I love to write about: family, friends, books, stories, writing, and, of course, love.

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You can also watch my quick video review for How To Write A Love Story below:

Also, you can order the book here.

Happy reading!