The Beginning of Sorrow

Sorrow Behind the Glass was a surprise to us. We weren’t trying to come up with a book idea. Neither of us had seriously considered writing a book before. We thought it would be fun, we loved the idea, but we had never truly given it a try. It’s sometimes funny how God works. He weaves things together quietly, and you don’t even realize it’s happening. That’s what happened with this book.

Sorrow started from a silly, or not so silly, conversation. We were up late one night talking about how cool a murder mystery party would be to attend. We started to put together the details of this imaginary party. Slowly the pieces came together, each of us adding to the discussion. The party would be held at a beautiful historic home. The Victorian mansion would sit on top of the hill with a tree-lined path leading up to it. The theme of the party would be the 1920s featuring flapper dresses and jazz music. The guests would have to work together to solve the mystery. At some point, we wanted to add some spooky elements, which is weird for us because we don’t do spooky.

“What if the estate was rumored to be haunted?”

“What if the mystery centered around a real-life murder…that took place in the house?”

“What if the guests were related to the original group of suspects?”

The what ifs continued until we realized we had an idea that we both loved. That started a new conversation with the main question—could we write a book? The next day we started writing things down and building on our original thought. Characters were introduced, plot points mapped out, and a book started to take shape. The final story has had many twists and turns from the original idea. One story has now turned into a four-book series with characters, places, and adventures we never imagined possible, but the heart of Sorrow has always been true to that original idea.

Our takeaway: don’t be afraid to ask your what if questions. They can lead to some really amazing answers. Take a leap of faith and trust that God will help you piece together the story one chapter at a time. There will be plot twists along the way (we’ll save that for another blog), but the ending will be better because of them.