The best story improvements often ambush us during mundane moments. You’re washing dishes, walking the dog, or lying in bed listening to a storm—and suddenly your manuscript whispers a better way forward.

Consider The Bourne Identity’s opening: a man pulled unconscious from the Mediterranean, riddled with bullets, carrying mysterious bank information but no memory. Ludlum could have started with Jason Bourne waking up in a hospital, confused but safe. Instead, he chose violence, mystery, and immediate danger. That choice transforms everything that follows.

Real life handed me a similar gift recently. In my novel Diavolessa, I had written a simple scene where my protagonist wakes to “a soft click” before drifting back to sleep. Functional, but forgettable.

Then a storm hit my house. I lay in bed listening to an interior door knock rhythmically in its frame—such a specific, unsettling sound. Suddenly I saw my scene differently. Now she wakes to “the slightest of sounds. A quiet thud, as if a gentle breeze was causing an interior door to knock in its frame.” She assumes it’s nothing, plans to close windows in the morning, and goes back to sleep.

Same scene, but now it breathes with possibility. That innocent sound could be nothing. Or it could be something, or someone.

The drama was always there. Sometimes it just takes a storm for us to hear it.

Back to writing

David