Inspiration for my debut novel, A Cry From The Deep, a romantic mystery/ adventure, came from a number of different places. Firstly, a screenwriter friend of mine came to me with an idea of a bride in the 1800s dying with her husband in a shipwreck, only to re-appear in present day on a farm in Provence. We met on and off for a year, trying to come up with a screenplay, but he wasn't happy with any ideas I proposed.
When we parted ways, the idea of two women's lives connecting over time never left me. I think it was because as a child, I had seen the time-travel film, I'll Never Forget You, starring Tyrone Power and Anne Blyth. Power plays a scientist who stumbles upon a deceased relative's diary, and becomes enthralled with the story he reads. Soon after, lightning strikes and he wakes up in the century he had been reading about and falls in love with a character played by Blyth. When he returns to the present, he meets a woman who looks like her and we know as an audience that love has continued over time. That notion of enduring love, lasting for centuries, was the ultimate inspiration for my novel.
But I still had no story. I started by wondering what kind of occupation would allow my protagonist to stumble across a shipwreck from another time. I decided to make my lead character, Catherine Fitzgerald, a world-famous underwater photographer, one who is asked to come out of early retirement due to a near-death diving accident nine years before. Though I knew little about this occupation, I loved the water, and appreciated the wonders of the deep from the limited snorkelling I’ve done. It’s a world that has left me in awe every time I visit.
A lover of National Geographic, I gave the job of tempting her back to the field to an editor of the magazine. And since Catherine was so passionate about the underwater environment and its preservation, I knew I had to create an antagonist who was also in love with the deep but didn't care about it the way she did. It was how Kurt Hennesey, the notorious salvager who stops at nothing to get what he wants, was born. For inspiration, I read many books and visited many websites on underwater photography, salvaging and marine archeology.
But where to have Catherine stumble upon the shipwreck was another dilemma. I found the answer when my husband and I spent a month touring the coast of Ireland in 2009, during which we saw the relics of the Girona in the Ulster Museum in Belfast. Following that visit, I researched what had happened to the other ships of the Spanish Armada and discovered that not all of them had been found.
So now I had two shipwrecks to deal with. The one involving the bride, and the other, a lost vessel from the Spanish Armada. How they connected would drive my story, half of which is set in Killybegs and the sea along the Donegal coast; the other half in Provence and Manhattan, places I’ve also visited.
In my novel about everlasting love and how we find it, I also played with the idea of reincarnation, ghosts and other psychic experiences. I’ve always been fascinated with the mystery of life – what we don’t understand, where we are and where we’re going. I read Edgar Cayce’s chronicles of his paranormal work when I was in my twenties, so those accounts stayed with me and inspired my writing.
As to where I got the idea for using a Claddagh ring to connect the two women from different times, I have to say it was Ireland, the country itself. I was so taken with its beauty, its history and its people, that it seemed fitting that a ring with so much significance would be at the heart of my novel.
And lastly, the love scenes for A Cry From The Deep were inspired by the men I've met and what I've experienced, as well as what I've witnessed over time in life, books and film. It's been a lot to juggle but I'm pleased with the results. And so far, it seems I've entertained both male and female readers with my story. What more can a writer want?
A Cry from the Deep is Diana Stevan’s debut novel. She has worked as a clinical social worker, teacher, model, actress and a sports writer and broadcaster for CBC television. She now lives with her husband on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. dianastevan.com
