Birth of a Story Part One of Two

Big Bend National Park

It seems logical that a storyline for a novel would follow a linear path, but that’s not always the case. Most of my ideas develop through a more haphazard route. Desperate Dreams was born from a snippet of a dream. I woke one morning and the only detail I could remember was of a small group of people huddled under the camper shell in the back of a small red pickup truck, trying to sneak into Mexico. I muddled this over for a while trying to decide what must America be like to encourage a reverse border run? It seemed like there was plenty of post-apocalyptic stories out there, so I eased back a bit and created an America where current technology had become mainstream. Most citizens embraced the safety and security of the new society while a few found the loss of privacy and freedom unbearable. But was this enough to make anyone challenge authority? Probably not, but what if men were being exterminated once their usefulness was over? For the men at risk and the women who loved them, this would be ample catalyst to push the characters to drastic measures.

Rio Grande on the U.S.-Mexico Border