Where I Get My Inspiration

The Real Places, People and Ideas Behind Margaret Amatt's Scottish Romance Novels

“Where do you get your inspiration?”

It’s probably the question I’ve been asked most often as an author.

And the honest answer is: everywhere.

The slightly less helpful answer is that I have absolutely no control over it.

A walk can give me a setting. A stranger can become a character. A memory can turn into a scene. A place can make me wonder what kind of person might live there. A film or book can leave me thinking, “What if…?”

And, on at least one occasion, my brain decided it could write an entire book while I was asleep.

When I first wrote about inspiration back in 2021, I was writing from the Isle of Mull and had only just begun publishing my Scottish Island Escapes series. Glenbriar didn't exist yet.

Since then, I've created an entire fictional Highland town, written many more Scottish romance novels, ventured off to Barra, and accumulated considerably more evidence that my brain will turn almost anything into a potential story.

So I thought it was time to revisit the question.

Because when I look back at the books I've written, I realise that the inspiration behind them is rarely one single thing.

More often, it's just a spark.

• A person.

• A place.

• A memory.

• A strange idea.

• A question beginning with what if...?

And sometimes several of those things collide and become a book.

Scotland is a pretty good place to start

I was born in Scotland and I live here, so writing about Scotland has always felt completely natural to me.

And really, why wouldn't it?

I love the landscapes, of course, but it's more than the scenery. I love the character of Scottish towns and villages, winding country roads, lochs, beaches, hills, little independent shops and cafés, and that wonderful sense of community you can find in smaller places.

All of those things find their way into my books.

My Scottish romance novels are rooted in a strong sense of place, whether I'm writing about a Highland village, the Scottish countryside or one of the islands I've fallen in love with.

My first series, Scottish Island Escapes, was inspired by a real Scottish island that I love: the Isle of Mull.

I'd visited Mull many times and was always slightly amazed that there weren't more novels set there. Eventually I thought:

If I can't find the books I want to read, perhaps I should write them myself.

And that's how my first Scottish island romance series began.

I didn't even write the books in series order. I actually wrote what became Book 4 first, although the finished novel changed considerably from that original version. The initial idea was very much influenced by Mull itself: I wanted to throw a rather hapless city dweller into the countryside and let the island become part of the story.

Sometimes the landscape inspires the story. Sometimes it simply inspires me to write.

That's an important distinction.

I don't have to be looking at a particular loch and thinking, “That needs to be in Chapter 7.”

Sometimes being somewhere beautiful and peaceful simply puts me in the right frame of mind. It makes me happy and gives me space to think. That can be enough to get the ideas flowing.

One of my earliest Mull-inspired stories came from my very first trip to the island — when I had neglected to look at a map and had absolutely no concept of how big Mull actually was.

Let's just say I learned a lesson that day, and the experience eventually helped inspire An Autumn Hideaway.

What inspired Glenbriar?

My Scottish Island Escapes books are set on a real Scottish island.

The Glenbriar Series is different.

Glenbriar is a fictional Highland town, loosely inspired by the area where I live in Highland Perthshire.

Real Scotland finds its way into Glenbriar all the time: landscapes, lochs, country roads, villages, local businesses, the feeling of a close-knit community and all those little details that make a place feel lived in.

But Glenbriar itself exists entirely in my imagination (and the pages of my books!).

And that's one of the things I love about writing a fictional Scottish town. I can take all the things I love about Scotland and create somewhere readers can keep coming back to.

The Glenbriar Series began with Stolen Kisses at the Loch View Hotel, but ideas introduced in one book often refuse to stay in one book.

A character who appears briefly might eventually get their own love story.

A business mentioned in passing might become the setting for another novel.

An event that was originally just part of the background can suddenly become the focus of an entire story.

The whisky business that first appeared in Stolen Kisses at the Loch View Hotel, for example, helped inspire Highland Fling on the Whisky Trail.

And the Autumn Gold Festival, which was part of the world of Glenbriar from the beginning, eventually became central to Love Song at the Music Festival.

That's one of my favourite things about writing an interconnected series:

You never quite know which little detail is going to grow into a whole new story.

Why did I write books set on Barra?

My relationship with Barra is a particularly good example of how my brain works.

The idea for The Castle in the Bay, the first book in my Love on the Edge – Barra series, came to me while I was on the Isle of Iona. Yes, Iona, not Barra! That's why I named the main character Iona, in memory of where the idea was born!

It was a stormy evening and I was sitting in a glamping pod when I suddenly decided I wanted to write a novel set on Barra.

There was just one tiny problem.

I'd never been to Barra.

So I did what any sensible author would do.

I planned the book...

and then booked a trip to Barra.

Sometimes research really has to be done properly.

That decision eventually led to the Love on the Edge – Barra series and another beautiful Scottish island becoming part of my fictional world.

People are probably my biggest source of inspiration

If you ask me what inspires me most, my answer hasn't really changed since I wrote the original version of this article:

People. People. People.

I am a habitual and slightly fanatical people watcher.

I love watching how people behave and wondering what makes them tick.

• What are they thinking?

• Why did they say that?

• What happened before this moment?

• What might happen next?

I don't necessarily take a real person and put them directly into a book. More often, it's a mannerism, an expression, a way of speaking, a particular personality trait or simply an interesting combination of characteristics that gets filed away somewhere in my brain.

And sometimes I don't even realise I'm doing it.

Years ago, while I was staying on Mull, I went for a walk with my husband and son. I'd made the mistake of wearing my trainers — which, unfortunately, weren't waterproof — and the path had turned into something resembling a river.

So I decided to head back to the car and change into my wellies.

As I rounded a corner, I saw a woman sitting on a boulder at the edge of the beach, tucked beneath some overhanging bushes with a book in her hand.

It looked idyllic.

Except she wasn't reading.

She was talking to someone I couldn't initially see.

As I got closer, I discovered that the other person was a man wearing a wetsuit and buoyancy aid, with a kayak lodged among the rocks nearby.

I have absolutely no idea who they were.

Perhaps they knew each other.

Perhaps they'd just started talking.

It didn't matter.

By the time I reached the car, my brain had already given them both backstories, conflicts, personalities and several possible ways their chance meeting could develop.

One day, it might be a book.

Or not.

I have so many moments like that that there simply aren't enough hours in the day to turn them all into stories.

Most disappear.

Some end up as a sentence in a notebook or a Word document, waiting patiently for me to remember why I thought they were important.

Sometimes a story starts with one tiny idea

One of my favourite examples is Pitching Up at Heather Glen.

The original idea was nothing more than a note in a notebook:

“The boy at the campsite.”

That was it.

The idea gradually developed into a story about someone who met a boy while camping as a child, returns years later and encounters him again — except she doesn't recognise him at first.

A whole romance grew from one tiny sentence.

Another book, A Flight of Fancy, began with a NaNoWriMo writing prompt involving two people who literally bump into each other after not seeing one another for years.

Sometimes that's all it takes.

One little what if?

And sometimes the idea arrives in a much stranger way.

Sometimes I dream my stories

Faking the Grade at Glenbriar High has possibly the strangest origin of all.

I literally dreamed it up.

Not just the vague premise. I mean I dreamed the whole story.

Apparently my subconscious decided it was time to get involved in my writing career.

I'm still not entirely sure whether that's helpful or slightly terrifying.

But it does prove one thing:

Inspiration doesn't always arrive when you're sitting at your desk.

Sometimes inspiration comes from everyday life

I don't think writers necessarily need extraordinary lives to find inspiration.

Ordinary life is full of stories.

For Cutting It Neat for the Wedding, the starting point was my hairdresser.

I'd had many happy visits to the salon, and I loved the cheerful, friendly atmosphere. The stylists were warm and fun, and I started imagining a character who would be exactly like that.

So Hayley was born: always smiling, always kind, always seeing the best in people.

Then she needed a love interest.

I wanted someone completely different.

On one walk back to the car from the salon, I passed a family law firm that specialised in divorce.

And suddenly I thought:

Wouldn't it be interesting if the man falling for this hopeless romantic was a divorce lawyer?

Oliver's job meant he dealt with relationships at some of their most stressful and unhappy moments, while Hayley saw romance everywhere.

They were complete opposites.

Which, naturally, meant there was plenty of opportunity for banter, conflict and romantic chemistry.

Sometimes the inspiration really is sitting right there in front of you.

Sometimes it's a memory

Not every story starts with a dramatic moment.

Just Friends at Thistle Lodge was partly inspired by fun family get-togethers from my childhood.

Those memories of people coming together, the personalities, the laughter and the little dramas of family life — like getting locked in a shed by my auntie — can all find their way into fiction.

You might not recognise the original event when it eventually appears in a novel, but the feeling of it can remain.

That's something I find fascinating about writing.

Sometimes it's something I love

Love Match on the Road Home was inspired by my lifelong love of tennis. I've been interested in tennis since the days of Boris Becker, Steffi Graff and Stefan Edberg.

I love the way a personal interest can provide the starting point for a romance novel.

You don't necessarily need to know everything about the subject.

You just need to be interested enough to wonder:

What if I put a love story here?

That question can take you surprisingly far.

Sometimes another story gives me the spark

I read books. I watch films and television. I see stories everywhere.

Sometimes I'll encounter a character dynamic, a theme, an emotional situation or simply a particular feeling that makes me think:

What if...?

I'm not interested in reproducing someone else's story. What interests me is taking the emotional thread that grabbed me and seeing where my own imagination takes it.

One example is Starting Over at the Crafty Bee Barn.

This one was inspired by some of the themes I loved in Poldark: rags to riches, redemption, social differences, complicated relationships and the idea of someone having to rebuild their life.

I took those broad themes and moved them into a different setting, with different characters and a completely different story.

And, for the avoidance of doubt, I also left out the cheating.

You're welcome.

The result is a very loose modern echo of some Poldark themes.

That's the kind of inspiration I find interesting: taking a feeling or an idea and asking what happens if you put it somewhere entirely different.

Sometimes a friend's idea becomes a book

A Hidden Gem was inspired by an idea given to me by a friend and inspired by some experiences that she wrote down for me in the hope that I could use them in a story  — and I did!

Fight or Flirt on the Scenic Route has a rather unusual history too. It was adapted from an original story of mine that was initially written as a multi-cast book, and it also incorporated an idea given to me by a Glenbriar book fan.

I love that stories can sometimes grow through conversations with other people.

You never quite know which random suggestion will lodge itself in your head.

Sometimes it's something I've read

A Surprise Proposal in the Rose Garden was inspired by another novel I'd read.

But, again, the finished concept was entirely different.

That's often how it works for me.

I'll read something and a tiny element will catch my attention. It might be the situation, the emotional dilemma, the relationship dynamic or simply the question it makes me ask.

Then my brain takes it away and starts rearranging everything.

Sometimes a real story sparks an idea

A Festive Surprise was inspired by the real-life success story of Syrian refugees settling on the Isle of Bute  — a different island to the one I was writing on, but the idea was enough.

Real communities can be so inspiring.

The warmth, resilience and kindness you see in real life can spark ideas about belonging, starting again and finding a place where you feel at home — themes that fit naturally into romance.

And perhaps that's another reason Scotland features so strongly in my books.

It's not just the scenery.

It's the people and the communities.

Sometimes an idea grows in the background

Some stories don't arrive with a dramatic Eureka! moment at all.

They evolve.

A Classy Affair in the Country grew from one of the first full-length stories I ever wrote, built around the age-old theme of differences in class and social background.

Highland Fling on the Whisky Trail developed from an article I read about a family-run Highland whisky distillery having to adapt to compete with larger companies.

Sometimes the initial idea isn't even a story yet.

It's simply something that makes me think:

That's interesting.

Sometimes a trope is the starting point

I have a confession to make.

I love romance tropes.

In fact, I I collect them  — does that sound strange? Would it surprise you to know that I have a document with a huge list of them?

• Enemies-to-lovers? Love it.

• Second chances? Yes, please.

• Opposites attract? Absolutely.

• Grumpy and sunshine? I'll have that.

• Fake relationships? Forced proximity? Childhood sweethearts? One bed? Small-town romance? Put them all in the basket.

But for me, tropes aren't a set of rules that tell me what a romance has to be.

They're starting points.

I love spotting a familiar trope and then wondering what I can do with it.

Can I combine two tropes that don't immediately seem to belong together?

Can I turn one on its head?

Can I give the characters a reason for behaving differently from the way you'd expect?

Can I take a situation readers think they know and shake it up a little?

Sometimes I deliberately look for a trope I've used before and think, How could I do this differently next time?

That's one of the things I find so much fun about writing contemporary romance. The basic ingredients might be familiar, but the characters, setting, circumstances and choices can make the resulting story completely different.

Take Summer Nights at Hillview Farm.

The starting point was the idea of a teacher falling in love with a pupil's parent. There are all sorts of assumptions and complications wrapped up in that situation, which was exactly what interested me.

Or Last First Kiss at the Village Church, where I took the familiar opposites-attract setup and put a rock-chic single mum with the young church minister 👀.

The trope gives me the doorway.

The fun is deciding what happens when I walk through it.

And I think that's why I never get bored of romance.

There are only so many fundamental ways two people can fall in love, but there are millions of ways to tell their story.

When one little detail becomes a whole novel

This is something I've discovered particularly strongly through writing Glenbriar.

A story rarely arrives as a complete novel.

It grows.

• A character appears in the background of one book.

• A business is mentioned.

• An event takes place.

• Someone has a job that makes you wonder what their own life is like.

And suddenly, several books later, you're writing their love story.

That's how a fictional town begins to feel real to me.

The more stories I write, the more connections appear.

Love Song at the Music Festival is a perfect example.

The Autumn Gold Festival was mentioned in the very first Glenbriar book. At the time, I simply thought it would be fun to have a music festival in the town.

Later, another character volunteered at the festival, and I introduced the local band Tavrach.

That was when the idea really took off.

I loved the idea of a frontman who looked and sang like a rock star, while underneath the stage lights he was simply a normal man dealing with real-life problems that nobody in the audience could see.

Then I introduced another problem: the band had been betrayed and lost one of its members.

That created an opening for someone new.

And that's where Mirren, the female lead, came in.

A passing detail in Book 1 had eventually become an entire Scottish romance novel.

Glenbriar has many more of those waiting to happen.

Christmas wishes, a little bookshop and two characters who wouldn't go away

Christmas Wishes at the Station Bookshop is another good example of how several different inspirations can collide.

I already knew I wanted to tell Scarlett and Lloyd's story because they'd appeared as side characters in an earlier book.

I just needed to work out where their reunion should happen.

Then I passed a quirky little bookshop at the railway station in Pitlochry.

And I thought:

That's it.

It was the perfect setting.

Once I had the bookshop, the Christmas story began to take shape.

Then came the idea of the wishes.

Both Scarlett and Lloyd have things they desperately want for Christmas — but they're not material things.

I thought it would be fun if they wrote their wishes down and then, without realising it, each ended up helping the other make those wishes come true.

So a real station bookshop, two existing characters, Christmas and a little idea about wishes all came together to create the story.

That's often what inspiration looks like for me.

It's not one lightning bolt.

It's a collection of little sparks.

So, what actually inspires my Scottish romance novels?

People

Real people, imagined people, characters I've already created and all the fascinating personalities I encounter along the way.

Places

Scotland, Highland Perthshire, Mull, Barra, lochs, beaches, villages, country roads, shops, hotels, farms and all the places that make me stop and look around.

Memories

Childhood experiences, family gatherings, holidays, conversations and moments that stay with me long after the original event has disappeared into the past.

Everyday life

A hairdresser. A law firm. A campsite. A railway station. A tennis court.

You really don't need to go very far to find a story.

Other stories

Books, films and television can spark a character dynamic, theme or emotional idea that sends my imagination off in a completely different direction.

Chats with other people

Friends, readers and fans have all given me ideas that have eventually found their way into my books.

Tropes

Sometimes a familiar trope is all it takes to make me think of a whole new idea or a story direction.

Dreams

Because apparently my subconscious has decided it deserves a writing credit too.

And then there is the biggest source of all:

The question “What if...?”

• What if these two people fell in love?

• What if they met again after years apart?

• What if someone returned to the place they knew as a child?

• What if a divorce lawyer fell for a hopeless romantic?

• What if a rock-star was actually just an ordinary man struggling with ordinary problems?

• What if two people wrote down their Christmas wishes — and accidentally helped each other make them come true?

The real problem with inspiration

The problem isn't finding ideas. It's stopping them. 

I have:

• Notebooks.

• Word documents.

• Random notes.

• Half-formed characters.

• One-line premises.

• Scenes that appeared in my head for no obvious reason.

• Characters who were supposed to be side characters but started demanding their own stories.

• Places that made me think, I could put a book there.

There simply aren't enough hours in the day to write all the books I'd like to write.

Sometimes I have to deliberately switch off the part of my brain that's constantly looking for the next story.

Because once you start thinking like a writer, it's surprisingly difficult to stop.

• A walk isn't always just a walk.

• A conversation isn't always just a conversation.

• A building isn't always just a building.

• A stranger isn't always just a stranger.

Everything has the potential to become something else. I have a t-shirt that sums it up with the words: "I'm a writer, anything you say may be used in a book"... if only I was joking (sorry, not sorry!)

And perhaps that's why I've been lucky enough to avoid writer's block so far.

If it ever does happen, I suspect I could open one of those notebooks and find enough unfinished ideas to keep me going for years.

Because the inspiration isn't a problem.

The problem is choosing which story to write next.

And somewhere among all those notes, memories, places, people, dreams and what ifs is another Scottish romance (or many) waiting to happen.

Want to explore the stories these ideas became?

If you're new to my books, you can explore my Glenbriar Series (and The Glenbriar Castle Series), Scottish Island Escapes and Love on the Edge – Barra series, or discover more about individual novels through their book pages and reviews.

My Scottish romance novels range from cosy Highland village romances and small-town love stories to Scottish island romances set on Mull and Barra, but they all have one thing in common:

people finding love, belonging and their happy ending.

And if you'd like to hear about new books, behind-the-scenes stories and future Scottish romance adventures, you can sign up to my newsletter.

Because there are still quite a few stories hiding in those notebooks...