A common piece of advice authors hear when they worry about having nothing new to add to the vast storytelling landscape is this: Every writer is unique.

The experiences that shape us—our lives, the pop culture we consume, the stories that resonate with us—all influence how we see the world, and that perspective inevitably finds its way into our work. If you gave the same book outline to ten different authors, you’d get ten distinct stories.

But how does this work for co-authors?

At first glance, we might seem pretty different, but we actually have a lot in common. And we recently discovered just how much more we share than we thought, thanks to the social media trend Where My Lore Started.

The idea is simple: You post stills from movies and TV shows that were formative for you—as a person and as a writer. We thought it would be fun, so we hopped on a call, reminisced, and realized that even though we grew up in different countries and belong to different generations, we loved many of the same stories.

Most surprising:

We both obsessed over Santa Barbara, an old 90's soap opera. (We'll ignore we might have been to young to watch the show.) This proves that even after writing together for over four years we can still discover new things about each other.

Most unsurprising:

The actual opera, La Bohème. Opera was one of the first things we realized we had in common. It was obvious to each of us we were meant to be friends when we geeked out over our favs.

In fact, we found so much common ground that we agreed on 20 screen and theater works for our Instagram post.

Then, something even more interesting emerged. Looking at our list, we noticed a pattern—our favorite films and shows aligned perfectly with the themes and tropes that define Willa Drew books. International settings, emotional depth, dramatic twists, angsty conversations, found family, self-discovery, and the slow burn of romance—all the elements we love to write were right there in our personal lore.

Of course, many of these stories fit into more than one category, but here’s how we broke it down:

International
Pride and Prejudice
Leap Year
The Big Blue

Emotional
Heartstopper
Les Misérables

Drama
Gossip Girl
90210
Santa Barbara
Lost

Angst
La Bohème
Normal People

Found Family
Gilmore Girls
Lord of the Rings
Younger

Slow Burn
When Harry Met Sally
10 Things I Hate About You

Self-Discovery
Pretty Woman
Sex Education
The Hunger Games

Because We Have a Crush on Jamie Dornan
Once Upon a Time

For all 20 photos, head over to our Instagram account.

Are any of these on your lore list? What are the movies and TV shows that shaped your current tastes? Email us your top three (or top ten) so we can geek out together.