Fragments of Fiction #01

Sometimes, the beginning of a story looks like nothing remarkable at all.

At first glance, it's just a hotel room in Denver. An ordinary room in an ordinary hotel, during a trip that was never supposed to become anything more than a trip.

But this is where part of the real story behind The Life We Never Lived began.

While I was in Denver for training, I matched with someone on a dating app. We exchanged messages that evening, continued texting the following morning, and eventually made plans to meet at a coffee shop a few blocks from the hotel.

At the time, there was nothing particularly extraordinary about it. Two people had connected online and decided to meet for coffee. It was the sort of thing that happens every day, in cities all over the world.

What made it significant wasn't something I could have recognized then.

Years later, when I began writing The Life We Never Lived, that first encounter became part of the foundation for Wes and Luis's story. The novel's opening draws inspiration from those early conversations and the unexpected connection that followed.

Of course, the novel is fiction. The characters, their conversations, and the circumstances surrounding their relationship have been shaped and reimagined for the story.

But the hotel room was real. So was the coffee shop. And so was the ordinary beginning of something that would eventually inspire an entire novel.

Looking at the photograph now, I'm reminded of how little we know about the significance of certain moments while we're living them.

Sometimes, it's only much later that we recognize where a story began.

Behind the Fragments

There's more to this story than what I've shared here.

In Behind the Fragments, an exclusive archive for subscribers to From the Desk, I share a more personal account of that time in Denver, the circumstances surrounding our first meeting, and the real experiences that inspired the fictional story.

Subscribe to From the Desk to explore the stories behind the fragments.