Making It Up

As journalists, Matt and I know that real life inspires good storytelling. In fact, we all know that Law & Order is a TV series based on actual events, that the True Crime genre is (pretty much) true and The Good Nurse movie is based on a real-life serial killer who murdered dozens of patients.

But what about less significant, every-day events that make compelling tidbits within a novel or TV series? The stuff that makes up the richness of a chapter or the humor of a particular scene? It actually is hard to make that shit up. So we’d love your help.

Maybe your adult neighbor down the street slept off his bender in your car and left his phone. Please tell us! Or you’ve repeatedly seen an albino deer in your backyard that you originally mistook for a dog. We’d want that, too.

Maybe you have a tale of a prank gone wrong. Or done right. Did someone give you beaver meat on a business trip? Did you see Tom Cruise outside a Wendy’s and you shared a fry with him? It doesn’t have to be funny, just thought provoking.

Maybe you interviewed someone for an accounting position and the candidate said they were a people person, not a numbers person. Or more ridiculously, the candidate asked for a glass of water, sipped it, then spat it into a potted plant.

Maybe it’s a story of inspiration, that someone was kind to you during a time of vulnerability. Did you lose your passport in a cab in China and the cabbie searched you out to return it? 

The other day I saw this headline and thought it might be compelling as a subplot: ”'Bad breath rapist' found in multimillion-dollar Bay Area home.” Yes, that’s fodder for an interesting story, but it is quite possible that no one would actually want to read a thriller about a bad breath rapist… so we’d really have to weigh the submissions. But if you submit and we do use your snippet, we’ll acknowledge you in the blog – and in the next novel!

If you have such a story, please share it at barrowsbeebebooks@gmail.com

Thanks, Jess and Matt