It's Always a Little Bit About Harry Styles

One of the most common refrains I hear as an author is that branding matters. If you want to grow your platform, you need a Strong, Recognizable Brand, something people can clock instantly and say, that’s so Lindsay-coded.

At the moment, I’d describe my professional brand as a work in progress. But my personal one? That’s rock solid, baby.

So solid, in fact, that when news of Harry Styles and Zoë Kravitz’s engagement broke, I got no fewer than a dozen messages from friends, all wanting to perform some version of a welfare check. Because if there’s one thing people know about me, it’s that I love Harry Styles. Like, so much that he inspired my debut novel, Till There Was You.

Pretty much everyone I know can point to something that kept them sane during the pandemic. Some turned to sourdough and puzzles, while others leaned on syndicated sitcoms and daytime drinking.

I, on the other hand, had Harry Styles.

While stuck inside, I listened to his music, read his fan fiction, watched TikTok compilation clips, and screened One Direction: This Is Us so many times I can recite it. I even briefly subscribed to the Calm app, just to listen to his gravelly voice read me a bedtime story.

Was it a classic parasocial relationship? Of course. Frankly, I haven’t had a crush like that since Titanic hit theaters in 1997. But at a time when things were scary and uncertain, Harry provided a much-needed sense of comfort and happiness. So when I started writing in 2020, he inevitably had a huge impact on my work.

For the record, I’m not upset about the engagement. As a loyal fan, I genuinely want him to be happy. But it did get me thinking that maybe professional and personal brands aren’t all that different after all. Because I’ve written 3.5 romance novels, and the truth is, every book boyfriend I’ve created is at least a little bit inspired by Harry.

Before I started writing novels, I wrote short, conceptual humor, and pop culture was my beat. One of the first things I ever published was essentially a fantasy about Harry Styles deciding to escape the spotlight and disappear into the suburbs (sound familiar?). He and I would meet in the frozen food aisle of a grocery store, and I’d insist he come over for a home-cooked meal. Our friendship would soon give way to passion, as he realized his true path to happiness was falling in love with a “normie” who, despite still carrying a bit of baby weight, at least made a semi-decent brisket.

It’s a classic fan fiction trope, and even though I’ve never been an AO3 or Wattpad reader, the concept of a celebrity-normie romance has been imprinted on my brain ever since.

It was definitely on my mind when I came up with Till There Was You, while folding laundry and listening to “Carolina” from Harry’s first (and at the time, only) album. I loved the idea of a musician “meeting a girl once” and becoming so smitten that he’s inspired to write a song about her.

I didn’t want the book to read like fan fiction, so it was important to me that Jake wasn’t Harry, at least not outwardly. Instead of writing him as a charismatic Brit, I made him a charismatic American with completely different physical characteristics.

But I still wanted him to possess Harry’s essence, that irresistible mix of playfulness, kindness, charm, and vulnerability. As research, I watched hours of performance clips, aiming to write from the perspective of a woman falling in love while being serenaded by a dreamy heartthrob.

And somewhere in the process, I came to the following conclusion:

If you want to write a love interest readers will fall for, you have to be a little bit in love with them yourself.

Jake from Till There Was You is the character most directly inspired by Harry, and while I tried to keep their similarities subtle, there are definitely Easter eggs scattered throughout the book for true Harries (and I love it when readers point them out). But he’s been woven into my other leading men too, even if it’s just in the eye crinkles, or the dimples, or the fact that his warm, husky voice was pouring through my headphones while I wrote that heart-fluttering feeling of falling in love.

But the truth is, Harry alone isn’t enough to sustain every character I write. To capture the sensation of a crush, the small details that make someone irresistible, the ache of heartbreak, and, most importantly, to ensure my leading men aren’t all the same, I’ve had to draw on other lived experiences, too.

People love to ask if the men in my books are inspired by my husband, and the answer is…not really? While I love him deeply and have borrowed the occasional personal detail (Jake’s dimple, his talent for the sousaphone), our relationship has never produced quite enough angst to mine. I knew I wanted to marry him the second we met. We never broke up while dating, never did long distance, and we rarely fight. We sometimes joke that our wedding felt more like a formality, because we were basically married a month in. The bottom line is, he doesn’t inspire much of my characters, simply because our relationship is too stable to provide much fodder.

So when I’m sitting at my desk and asking myself things like, “what does it feel like to yearn for someone you can’t be with?” or “what runs through your mind when you’re trying to stop yourself from falling in love?” I usually have to reach further back into the archives of my own relationships and childhood crushes.

Which brings me to a partial and non-exhaustive list of memories I conjure for inspiration:

• Leonardo DiCaprio leaning over the bow of the Titanic to smile at the dolphins

• Leonardo DiCaprio ogling Claire Danes through a fish tank in Romeo + Juliet (are you noticing a theme yet?)

• Devon Sawa descending the staircase in Casper

• A high school boyfriend I was convinced was the Pacey to my Joey, despite the only real similarities being the proximity of our houses and our shared penchant for sneaking into each other’s windows

• A college boyfriend who was overly fond of quoting emo lyrics in his angsty AIM away messages, but with whom I shared incredible banter

• A quiet, competent ex who was a perfect foil to my quirky, bubbly energy

• Several very excellent first kisses, two of which occurred in elevators

And if all else fails, I’ll cue up the songs I listened to on my Discman while lying on my twin bed and daydreaming about teenage boys who did absolutely nothing to earn my affection (because if there’s ever a time for a misguided, all-consuming crush, it’s before your frontal lobe is fully developed).

Such lust-inducing tracks include:

• I Wanna Be With You, by Mandy Moore + the entire Centerstage soundtrack

• Dreamlover, by Mariah Carey

• Can’t Fight the Moonlight, by Leann Rimes

• From the Bottom of My Broken Heart, by Britney Spears

• This I Promise You, by N’Sync

Music is a powerful vessel for capturing memories and feelings, and as an emotionally repressed eldest daughter, it’s sometimes the most effective tool I have for unlocking them.

I came to the genre relatively late, and unlike many of my colleagues, I’m not a lifelong romance reader. But I’ve always been in love with the idea of being in love, and I’ve had plenty of practice romanticizing my crushes into something just a little more magical. In a way, it feels almost inevitable that I ended up in the career I did. Because what is romance if not imagining the most compelling version of what love could be?

Which brings me back to my original thesis: if you want to write a love interest others will fall for, you have to fall for them yourself. Whatever it takes, find a way to tap into those magical, fluttery feelings and pour them onto the page. Because at the end of the day, the most convincing love interests are the ones you love yourself.

Although, it never hurts if they’re a little Harry-coded.

Until next time,

<3 Lindsay