The Moment That Sparked My Latest Story

It was a beautiful day in Spring. The blossom was in full bloom on the trees, the birds were singing. I was strolling, quite carefree, from Sainsbury’s, a carrier bag swinging from each hand, dwelling on nothing in particular, my thoughts merely passing like clouds.

Suddenly, a first line popped into my head. Seemingly from nowhere, uninvited and certainly not wanted, as I was currently in the middle of wrestling with getting another story onto the page. The last thing I needed was a distraction. Yet here was this line, fully-formed.

“Whenever she heard that this or that place was a ‘hotbed for affairs’, Lainey Maurice remained sceptical.”

The line had a character name, a suburban setting, and the suggestion of a plot. The character in question had a personality, a sceptical, judgemental mindset that felt worth exploring, and a particular kind of life I was keen to inhabit and understand some more. The word ‘hotbed’ intrigued me. So-much-so, it became the title of the story.   

As can happen with first lines, that line led to another and then another and gradually I saw more and more of Lainey’s world and discovered the weed of a story that struggled up from the cracks and went where it wanted to go, needed to go. I was immediately hooked on Lainey and the strange events of her day, soon putting aside the story I was ‘meant’ to be writing and allowing this one to flourish, until it was finished.

Hotbed is a short story of just over 3000 words, yet it does everything I wanted it to do. It is uncanny yet also feels real, is quirky yet also familiar. Lainey’s is a world that feels like it exists, behind the manicured hedges of British suburbia. A world I know and yet don't know, a world that both lures and repels. I feel for and dislike Lainey. She is worthy of compassion and criticism.

Who knows where stories or characters come from? Why she came to me, with such strong scepticism, that spring day?

I’m grateful to Lainey she did.

Lucy Kaufman is an author of psychological suspense. Her short story Hotbed can be downloaded for free here. Her short story Don't Forget the Crazy is available here and her Victorian gothic novella The Heart-Shaped Box is available here, in paperback from Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble and all good bookshops, and in audiobook on Audible, Spotify and other audio platforms.