Brainstorming may be my favorite part of watching a book come to life. Before all the plot lines and edits and grammar get all twisted up in the creativity, there just exists an idea. At least that’s how it is for me. Usually it’s a scene or maybe even a character. Turns out, one of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis wrote about this very thing in his essay “On Stories.”

For my current hockey romance, my story idea originated with two hockey players (USA vs Canada) and an epic love story that bega...