Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. 

Today’s guest for the WHAT is Tyrell Johnson, author of The Lost Kings, a riveting psychological thriller with a killer twist about a woman forced to confront the darkest moment in her childhood in order to move on from her past and open her heart to love.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

Like you said, the origins of my writing are often quite nebulous. This time, however, there was a bit of an inspiration. It was during the pandemic, my wife and I were stuck at home with three kids (think Lord of the Flies), and I didn’t know what to write next. She told me she had nothing good to read and to just write a book for her. So, in a way, I did. She likes complicated characters, mystery, and a touch of romance. But also, I wanted to write about trauma because it felt like the world was going through (and still is!) a collective case of WTF is going on? Between those two things, somehow Jeanie King and The Lost Kings was born.

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

Once I have the character fairly set in stone and a basic idea of their backstory, I just continue to put them in situations of drama and see how they react. From there, the novel starts to write itself.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper? 

Yes. This is one of the more fun and surprising things about writing fiction. I had a professor in college tell me once that the brain of a writer and the brain of a schizophrenic aren’t that dissimilar. You have to write like a schizophrenic sometimes, like you hear voices, contain multitudes, like your own characters can surprise you. I remember having a nice little ending planned out for one of my characters, only to have them resist so hard, they literally jumped out of a moving vehicle. It was kind of fun to write actually.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by? 

I’d say they come to me fairly often, but whether or not they make it through my screening process and excite me enough to write is another story. I have to be pretty passionate about the project I’m working on, otherwise my boredom comes out in the writing.

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating? 

Often, I’ll write a few pages and see which one takes off.  But it’s very much a feeling. If a story reaches a point of development in my head and begins to weigh on me, begging to be written, I can’t help but start putting words down on paper.

I have 6 cats and a Dalmatian (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

At one point in my life, I had a husky, a miniature horse, and a donkey as my writing buddies (no joke), but nowadays, it’s only the husky and the occasional small human that comes in to say hi.

Tyrell Johnson is a father, writer, and editor. His post-apocalyptic novel The Wolves of Winter (Scribner 2018) was an international bestseller. Originally from Bellingham Washington, he now lives in Kelowna British Columbia.