Experimental Brainstorming

As many of you know, I've been writing historicals for almost thirty years. I miss the days of "anything goes" but understand the market has become so huge now that we have to be far more organized in our approach to find readers. Unfortunately, the result is that I'm feeling claustrophobic with all the limitations crushing my weird imagination. I could self-publish but I'd rather continue reaching my print readers.

So I need to stimulate my imagination and break down the walls confining me. Not an easy task since some of those walls are self-imposed. For instance, if I'm to write about England, the book needs to be set between 1750-1850. That's just how my head works. So I have this fun idea tickling my brain for the 1750s near Bath, which is undergoing a huge transformation into a tourist attraction and center of aristocratic society. But of course, my warped imagination wants to deal with a rural village some distance from town. I resist towns.

And I'm bored with conflicts built out of money and social status and I'm not particularly fond of spies. Now think about it--what historical romances have you read recently that doesn't have a foundation in one of those subjects? Yes, a talented writer can make any conflict immensely interesting. But I need the conflict to interest ME. Not that I'm self-centered or anything, "G" but a book can take several years of my life. It ought to entertain me while I'm writing it.

Here's the challenge: if I have a squire's daughter and the younger son of an aristocrat, both independent of their families, neither of them poor or rich, neither of them interested in titles, what can I use to keep them apart? What would interest you? We can give them conflicting goals, or tormented pasts, or dark secrets, or...  I need to brainstorm away the cobwebs!