Blogs by Flo Fitzpatrick
Sweet Dreams - How They're Made
10/24/2025 12:17:37 PM
The Making of Mystery/Romance Sweet Dreams
The late 1950s and early 60s produced an interesting genre of music most commonly called “teen tragedy” songs. “Tell Laura I Love Her”, “Patches”, “Last Kiss,” “Teen Angel,” “Leader of the Pack” are among the classics. Then there’s “Laurie (Strange Things Happen” by Dicky Lee, who took a fairly well-known ghost story and turned into a spooky teen tragedy tune winner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBVCTD6_Xfw
The song is about a young man who meets a girl at a dance and instantly falls in love. He walks her home; she says it’s her birthday. It’s cold. He gives her his sweater. Polite, he takes her to the door of her parents house, kisses her good-night. He leaves, then remembers she still has his sweater. He goes back to the door, knocks. Her dad answers and gives the guy the strange news (long story short, just listen to the song)....Laurie died a year ago today on her birthday. Stunned, he walks to the cemetery and finds his sweater lying on top of Laurie’s grave.
And what, pray tell, does this have to do with “Sweet Dreams”? Well, I happened to hear the song on an oldies station and thought, “What if I had a heroine who falls in love with a guy and somehow they end up at a seance and the medium freaks out because he “doesn’t exist.” ??
That was the start. It was also the only thing kept in the book from that original inspiration but since the medium is projecting what could happen in the future it gave me the idea to provide my heroine with second sight/premonitions.
My heroine was named after one of my dogs, Abby Normal…better known as Abby :) I like the name and even throw in a line from Abby’s new roommate, a topless dancer known as Cherry Ripe, saying “Abby” sounded like the name of a dog in the pound.
The title was tricky. Originally I wanted it to be called “Tanqueray, Tonic, & Chocolate…With Olives on the Side” but the folks at Tanqueray nixed it. I couldn’t even use their name IN the book. I didn’t want to spend days calling other distillers of alcohol and honestly, “Gin (or Vodka), Tonic and Chocolate..etc” didn’t have the same vibe. So time to find another title.
I’d given several characters names based on sweets (Gina Ghiardelii, Nick Toblerone, Cookie Gutierriz).
And the hero, Johnny Gerard, is a featured actor on a soap opera that’s constantly putting folks into comas. He even dreams he’s at a 1970s disco during one coma-filled episode.
I love books that use song titles and thought “Sweet Dreams” would work, since one can go country with Patsy Cline: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0YktY3mL7o
Or early 80s “syntho-pop” with the Eurythmics (which makes an awesome dance tune!)
Sweet Dreams it was!
Think I’ll get up and do a few moves now :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeMFqkcPYcg
Sweet Dreams http://bit.ly/4n7naSS
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