Detour Behind The Scenes

Well, some of them anyway.

Here we are a few days out from release day and I thought it’d be fun to share the story behind the story—at least a couple parts of it.

So, if you’ve read Detour already (shout out to my awesome ARC team!) then you’re familiar with the overlook. If you haven’t read it yet, don’t worry, this isn’t spoiling anything major. The overlook was based on a real place I went late one night with a group of friends as a teen. I had no idea where we were going or how we got there (see previous comment about it being late at night, like really late) but I remember the feeling it gave me once we arrived. The tiny lights. The different perspective. Everything. I wrote as much as I could from memory. Now, there were two scenes from that location—one at night, one during the day. The day scene was written with complete imagination. At first.

After I’d already written both scenes, I traveled to my homestate of Washington, which is where Detour takes place. Just for fun (and yeah okay, probably an insta pic or two) I wanted to find the overlook while I was there. One problem. It didn’t come up on GPS. Like at all. So, I did something a little crazy. I let (reads as: made) myself get lost. I spent an entire afternoon driving around searching for a place I went to once 14 years ago—in the middle of the night. Yep. Lost doesn’t even begin to describe it. Oh, and I was in a rental car with no phone charger.

With a rapidly decreasing tank of gas, just under 10% phone battery, absolutely zero cell service, and a burning desire to find this mysterious overlook, I actually found it! Well, close to it. Remember what Angela discovered during the day scene? Those ominous signs that Coty chose to ignore? Yeah, those pesky “suggestions” to keep out did a great job of keeping me out. Oh fictional characters, they have all the fun, don’t they?

Jackpot! Keep in mind, this photo was taken with me standing ON TOP of my (ahem) rental car, but it was totally worth it in my mind. Isn’t it breathtaking? I knew I had to write the wind-turbines in along with those advisory signs.

One of my favorite parts to write, I swear.

Okay, the next tidbit doesn’t come with any photographic evidence but is pretty cute nonetheless. At aforementioned overlook, Coty pulls out a takeout bag of food from a taco truck—Paco’s Tacos to be exact. Aside from the fact that I miss taco trucks something fierce (upstate NY is severely lacking in the taco truck department), this made-up name actually has a backstory. My youngest’s name is Parker. Being in kindergarten, it’s quite normal for most kids that age to have trouble with their R sound. And my daughter has 2 in her name! With that being said, at least half her class called her “Paco” in those adorable lispy voices 6-year-olds pull off so well. So sweet! I had the privilege of hearing it for myself one day while helping out in class and it’s been one of her many nicknames (all my kids have at least 7 each) ever since. Pretty cool, huh?

Well, that’s the insider scoop. I absolutely adored writing Detour and hope you’ll love it just as much. Thanks for spending some time learning a little more about the story behind the story. Happy reading!