Genesis of My Story

by Miranda Turner

Thank you for allowing me to stop by today and share a little something about how my book came to be. My debut novel is in the urban fantasy genre, and as I enjoy sweeping story arcs, it is the first in a planned five book series following the same two main characters. There is a romantic subplot, but romance is not the main focus. Gabriel and Evander have a lot to work through before they’re ready for a HEA.

One day about five years ago, I was sitting around when a few sentences popped into my head that I felt compelled to write down. That one line later became the jumping off point for what is now a series following the same two main characters and their team of immortal warriors who will have their own spinoff series. But back then, I only had a line.

“Gabriel woke to an angel beside his bed. Unfortunately, it wasn’t his dream man. It never was.”

Fast forward three years and I was going through some huge life changes when Gabriel popped into my head with his smart mouth and swagger. The line above originally had no names and even different pronouns. I’d never done anything with it. A story for it had never come to me like it had with some of my other small pieces of writing. But, as I do when a character or other idea pops into my head, I opened my work in progress folder and my ideas document. That line was at the top, and Gabriel grabbed on to it and told me it was his.

I immediately began writing and hit about the 15K mark before those huge life changes started affecting me too deeply to continue. I put it aside with all my other partially finished stories and concentrated on better establishing my editing business to be able to support myself and my children. A few months later, I moved myself and my children across the country to be closer to my family and live in the area I grew up in.

The first year we were here was mostly spent adjusting to our new normal, but the kids settled in quickly, and we were soon happily living our lives. This new, calmer existence allowed Gabriel to come back to the forefront of my mind, and he was shouting…loudly. Reading back through what I’d already written, I realized that, through all my editing work, I’d improved my own writing too. So I started over, only keeping the original starting line and finessing it a little.

From a single line and a single character, an entire world sprang into existence in my head. A world filled with angels, demons, immortal warriors, secret missions, gods and goddesses, and more. This world also has limits, and most people aren’t what they seem. There is prejudice, unfounded hatred, and all the human fallibilities packaged in the bodies of immortal and/or supernatural beings. While they have power, they don’t have perfection, and in my very biased opinion, that’s what makes them so interesting. I couldn’t stop writing their story, and for the first time in my life, I reached those all-important words. The End.

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