The Enduring Appeal of Missed Connections

By Freya Sampson

To the blonde guy at Kings Cross Station carrying the guitar case. We smiled at each other on the platform but I was too shy to ask for your number before I got on the train. I’ve been kicking myself ever since. Coffee soon? 

From the Brunette with the Blue Satchel 

For years, I used to commute to work in London on the bus. Whenever I got on, I’d look around for a copy of the free newspaper Metro and turn straight to the Rush Hour Crush column. In it, strangers appeal to find someone they saw on a London bus or train and were attracted to, but never dared ask for their number. I was fascinated by this column, and always wondered if they ever worked out; were these lovelorn commuters re-united with their missed love connections?

This question was part of the inspiration behind my new novel, The Lost Ticket. It tells the story of an elderly man who has spent sixty years riding the same bus looking for a girl he fell in love with in his youth, and the strangers on the bus who try to help him find her. I wanted to imagine what would happen if you couldn’t forget a person even decades after one brief encounter, and how you might go about finding them all these years later (including, of course, an advert in Rush Hour Crush).

I’m definitely not the only person who is intrigued by this idea of missed connections; just look at the number of wonderful romance novels and films that explore this theme. When I was a teenager, one of my favorite movies was Sliding Doors, in which two versions of Gwenyth Paltrow’s life play out: one in which she catches the train and marries the handsome man from the lift, and one in which she misses the train and never meets him again. And Josie Silver’s gorgeous book One Day in December takes the idea even further by giving her main character not one but ten missed opportunities with the guy she falls in love with through the bus window.

I think one reason this ‘missed connections’ trope is so interesting is because it plays into the ideal of love at first sight. Can we really tell someone is our soulmate from a brief eye contact through a bus window or across a crowded room? What if the guy with the guitar case really was her one true love? If you’re a romantic, like I am, this idea is hugely appealing. In fact, more than one couple who met through the Rush Hour Crush column have since got married, with one man proposing to his fiancé on the same station platform where he first spotted her!

Another reason I’m so drawn to these stories is because of the question of fate. If the guy with the guitar is her soulmate, are they destined to meet again one day, or will they never find each other again? The film Serendipity plays with this question brilliantly. Kate Beckinsale’s Sara falls for a stranger she meets in a shop, but after one night together, the wind blows her phone number out of his hand. Rather than give him her number again, Sara decides that she’ll leave it up to fate: if they’re meant to be together then they’ll meet again, and if not it was never meant to be. The film then flashes forward several years, and is filled with lots of wonderful missed connections.

Finally, I think many of us enjoy these kind of stories because they speak to the ‘what ifs’ in our own lives. However happy we may be, many of us still have those question marks in the back of our brains. What if I’d plucked up the courage to ask that boy out at school? What if I’d stayed on the platform to talk to the handsome man with the guitar, rather than jumping on my train? Perhaps I’d be a rock star’s wife right now, sipping cocktails by a pool in Malibu. But then would I be an author, reading Rush Hour Crush on the bus and musing about missed connections? Probably not! Maybe some connections we’re supposed to miss...

Freya Sampson is the author of two novels, The Last Chance Library and The Lost Ticket/The Girl on the 88 Bus. She worked in TV as an executive producer and her credits include two documentary series for the BBC about the British Royal Family, and a number of factual and entertainment series. She studied History at Cambridge University and in 2018 was shortlisted for the Exeter Novel Prize.

May-lee Chai On Writing Short Stories That Reflect The Moment

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 May-lee Chai, author of Tomorrow in Shanghai. May-lee Chai is a writer and educator. She is the recipient of an American Book Award and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. In addition to her books, she has published numerous short stories and essays in journals, magazines, and anthologies,

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

I wrote the stories in Tomorrow in Shanghai over many years, but I started putting the collection together during the pandemic amid a series of anti-Asian attacks. Those twin phenomena really shaped which stories I wrote and/or selected for the collection. None of my stories are set in this contemporary moment, but I wanted all the stories to reflect the anxiety of trying to survive amidst various kinds of violence and pressure.

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

For all my stories, I usually start with the image of a character or a setting for a character. For example, in “Life on Mars” it was Yu being driven from the airport in Denver to his new town and his realizing the world looks very different from his home in China. I wanted to see how he’d adapt in a place that felt completely alien to him, so I started throwing problems at him to see how his character would react. In “Hong’s Mother,” I knew the mother and daughter were going to end up in Lourdes, France on a pilgrimage of sorts, one that the mother wanted for religious reasons and the daughter for completely different reasons. I wanted to see if I could write towards them having an epiphany in their relationship, but I didn’t know when I began how they’d reach that point or what it would look like.

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

Yes! In “Life on Mars,” I originally imagined that the story was going to end differently, but as I wrote into the character, his capacity for resilience and optimism ultimately proved more interesting to me than my original plot point.

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

I am constantly working on different projects, some short and some long. If I feel stuck in one, then I move on to the others. And when I feel refreshed, and my mind is ready to return to one of the long-term projects, I can go back and work on it again.

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

 I write what I’m interested in developing and discovering more about.

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?

Distracting! I write with headphones on and need to try to block out all other sensory distractions.

Beyond Body Positivity

By Danielle Jackson, author of The Accidental Pinup

I knew when I first started writing The Accidental Pinup that I wanted the heroine of this book to be confident. It didn’t matter what she looked like, how she wore her hair, or what the world perceived her to be… Cassie Harris was going to love herself and know her worth. The fact is that other people—other characters on page, even—discount Cassie because she’s a plus size Black woman business owner trying to catch her big break to take her career and boudoir photography studio to the next level. But Cassie knows from the start that she’s the best and she deserves to be respected for the job she’s been hired to do.

But when that job morphs from being the photographer to the photographed? Even Cassie, a confident woman who loves her body and curves, has her doubts. Because it’s not just any old photo shoot she’s now starring in… It’s a sexy lingerie ad campaign. Now, Cassie has experience with lingerie photography; she’s the owner of Buxom Boudoir, Chicago’s premiere boudoir and pinup photography studio. She makes her clients feel comfortable and powerful and beautiful at their most vulnerable. And when she has to model dreamy lingerie in front of Reid Montgomery, a fellow photographer with a bit of a bad boy reputation, Cassie isn’t insecure about how she’s going to look, she’s worried about doing a good job in a situation she wasn’t anticipating. 

It was important to me that Cassie didn’t just practice body positivity, but body acceptance. Cassie’s hot and she knows it. But though she’s used to calling the shots on set and aside from goofing off with her friends, she hasn’t been a model. To bring her vision fully to life for the photo shoot in question she has to pose, scantily clad, outside… in winter. In Chicago! But beyond thinking she looks great, Cassie also has to feel it. It’s through these photo shoots and seeing the photographs after the fact that Cassie really embraces that she’s beautiful, powerful, and in charge of how the world is going to see her. 

And the fact that Reid thinks all of this, too, is icing on the cake. But that’s an entirely different blog post ;-) 

Body positivity, body neutrality, and body acceptance are all different things—yes, we should find different bodies beautiful. Yes, we shouldn’t judge people based solely on their outward appearance (because you really don’t know what is going on with someone, the size of their body notwithstanding). But above all, we should accept people as they are. It’s easy to judge someone by what is presented to us first and foremost, and it’s often hard to go beyond the surface. But we owe it to each other to get to know people and understand their values and motivations. And I hope, through this fun love story, more people start to do exactly that. 

Danielle Jackson is a contemporary romance author, avid reader, lackluster-yet-mighty crafter, and accomplished TV binge-watcher. Once upon a time, she was a publicist in publishing and continues to cultivate her love of books and reading by chatting with the best authors in the business as an event coordinator at an independent bookstore and as the co-host of the Fresh Fiction podcast. She also moderates panels, interviews authors, and hosts a romance book club. Danielle lives in Chicagoland with her very own romance hero husband, darling daughter, and two tempestuous cats. For more information, visit https://daniellejacksonbooks.com/ and follow her on Twitter and Instagram, @DJacksonBooks.