Where do we get inspiration from?

[Skybase Girl]

Okay, I’m sure this topic has been done to death over the years, but if some of us old timers are still writing (and hoping we have a new generation coming up behind us!), maybe the question is still relevant. Where do we get ideas for fanfic from? A friend of mine who is a very successful published writer still writes the fanfic she started from when she feels stuck. Her opinion is if you are a decent fanfic writer, you are a good writer. So, let’s feel good about ourselves in all our endeavours!

However... we all struggle with finding something new and meaningful to say, sometimes. Everything seems like it’s been done before. Hard to come up with original plots, different angles. So how do we do it? For me, a lot of the time, it’s music. Sometimes a lyric will inspire an idea which might be promising. Sometimes it’s a story I might read in a newspaper or magazine. I get inspired by books, but try to steer of the actual plot in case it may be plagiaristic.

Most times, I have no new ideas at all and I feel dull and uninspired. Yet not all stories have to be plot brilliant as long as they’re character driven. Sometimes the smallest nuggets turn into the brightest diamonds.
So, go forth and mine, my friends, and if you have helpful tips to share, please do so !

[Isabelle]

Well, I might not be writing NCS stuff currently and I'm more on the TAG side of things and writing like there's no tomorrow, but the process would be pretty much the same in my case.


Sometimes, it's a detail I see in the series, sometimes it's something that answers a question or fills a plot hole that will trigger a story idea. Often, talking about plot with friends will help, especially if I'm stuck! The back and forth of asking questions and trying to explain where I want to take the story can trigger the writing again and help me see solutions to problems. Talking to other people is important, I think.

Sometimes I'll turn to making pictures, too. They are not necessarily related to what I'm trying to write, but it takes my mind off the problem area for a while and puts it into another problem area. And sometimes, pictures become prompts for ideas like Bad Trip in my case.

I usually try to only work on one story at a time, but if I have ideas for short stories now, I take pause the larger story and go for it. Sometimes stories just want to come out and characters are demanding attention and won't leave me alone until I scratch the itch. I'm usually careful that my shorts won't reveal something I haven't written in the main story yet though.

Some people will use the help of prompt lists; sometimes a sentence or situation will trigger something bigger. Some people go for drabbles, just to start things up.


As far as finding new subjects and not copying other works, that's nearly impossible. There's only so many varieties of stories one can come up with. Plus, readers will willingly read stories about the same subject if that's what they want to read about. For example, I won't say no to, say, NCS Blue/Green stories, even if I write them myself and even if I have similar ideas. It's that person's take on the situation and it's another POV that is interesting to see.

[Elentari]

My initial idea to write fanfic was inspired by reading the stories on SHQ. I'd attempled it in my early teens but was very much discouraged by my parents who thought I was wasting time on writing rubbish when I should be studying. They threw out all my efforts and so I gave up on the idea for a very very long time.

Some of my stories were based on real events and places - sometimes embellished of course!

The Mysteron's issues with contacting Spectrum for instance was when lack of sufficient staff and the rise of automated systems meant it took 45mins to an hour to contact the IT help desk were I worked.

'Spectrum's Headquarters Southern Region' is also a real place I knew well....as was the muddy carpark where Scarlet had to leave his SPV.

The idea of Spectrum's Values came to me when framed posters were put up in my boss's office of similar ideals. Elements of Scarlet and Blue at the disciplinary hearing are based on real procedures, but mostly I had fun with Values, making sure all the main characters had something to contribute.

Captain Magenta was at a real military base where there really was such a place called the defaulter's carpark, and the creepy experience of the ghostly footsteps (and the reason for it) was told to me by my ex.

Some of the things said in Not a Rest Centre are based on real conversations with my father who was suffering from Alzheimer's.

But my Halloween Captain Black stories are teased out ideas from passing thoughts after watching CS episodes and studying Captain Black.

The board of enquiry series is me poking fun at some of the absurdities of CS and NCS, and no Aussie CS fan can resist thinking up captions for illustrations that are just crying out for them. LOL

If I could come up with an idea and hopefully some kind of ending, then with any luck I could fill in the rest of the story.

I guess overall real life has been my inspiration but reoccurring illness then retirement has rendered my life rather dull at the moment, which is why I suppose I haven't written anything for years. I keep hoping an idea will come to me but so far it just hasn't happened. I doubt anyone would want to read about Colonel White having to retire due to (among other reasons) arthritis. LOL

I'll be interested to read what inspires other writers.

[hazel]

Some years ago, there was a post on this forum asking about the nature of plot bunnies. A plot bunny can be absolutely anything - that tiny seed that leads to a full-blown story which may have nothing to do with the plot bunny by the time it's finished. Most of my inspiration comes from plot bunnies. The most infamous is probably "Loss of Innocence" which was inspired partly by the unisex loos in the office where I was working at the time (yes, really!), and partly by the enormous door into the innards of the motorway flyover opposite my flat.
However, some inspiration can backfire. One of my unfinished stories, SIQ2, was inspired by a dream in which I saw the USS Enterprise firing on Cloudbase. That was all I remembered from the dream, and I thought it was such a terrific image that I started writing a sequel to SIQ based on that one image. Big mistake... trying to force a story is not a good idea.
There's a story begging to be written in a cut-out-and-dress booklet featuring Scarlet in tight-fitting red briefs, and an horrifically-garishly-decorated apartment, a photo of Lady Penelope prominently featured on the wall. I have an early scene in mind, but no idea how to take it any further. (Many thanks to Elentari for the tip-off about the booklet! It was well worth the import fee.)

[The Unknown Angel]

My overarching inspiration for my Angel stories is the Ace Combat series, a story-driven series of games focusing on air-to-air combat with plenty to work with, from plots to character interactions to aircraft design. I think that series might be the big reason I decided to do stories focusing on the Spectrum Angels.

Besides that, there's quite a few other elements from other sources of media that can provide some inspiration for plot ideas.

A lot of situations come about as things I just think up based on the canon backstories and details of characters, trying to see what sorts of ideas I can carve out of those details. Deficiencies in equipment for Spectrum officers can also create some ideas. And the world itself can provide some inspiration for stories.

[Clya Brown]

Like Skybase Girl above, quite often I find myself getting inspiration from music. "Abroad as I was Walking" adapted the lyrics of "Maid in Bedlam” to form the basis of Symphony Angel's delirium when she found herself abandoned in the desert, desperately trying to understand why Captain Blue was taking so long to come to rescue her from the unspeakable hell into which she'd thrown. In the song, the young maid is driven to insanity by her lover having been sent to sea by his parents, but both tales end happily when the hero returns to rescue her at long last.

The interpretation of Tina Palamac in "Her Lives and Times" needed a young woman who was cold, deadly and unstoppable, and her character was partly inspired by the lyrics of "Here She Comes" by Bonnie Tyler. From the final part in the trilogy, the altercation with the poachers in Foxley Woods that saw Scarlet and Lieutenant Almond shot down by the Parkins clan is based on the events described in a 19th century folk song, in which three brothers are tried and convicted together for an assault on gamekeepers while poaching. There are many versions of it around, but the one I'm most familiar with is "The Bold Poachers" on Steeleye Span's album "Please to See the King".

Getting away from music and taking inspiration from a real person instead, Lieutenant Almond was based on a Romanian tour guide in her late teens called Rodica who spent several days driving us around Transylvania's poorly made-up country roads in a Range Rover during a holiday of ours just after the turn of the century, peppering our day trips to Brasov, Viscri and Bran Castle (reputedly Dracula's home) with anecdotes about the Ceausescu era just prior to the 1989 revolution, which she could still remember from her childhood. There's a scene in "The Concordian Legacy" in which Almond wakes up in the middle of the night having flashbacks to an occupation by Bereznik forces (in reality Ceausescu's dreaded secret police, the Securitate) which was based loosely on her recollections.

Just thinking back a decade or two, the character of Muriel Tippett in "Washing Day" was inspired by Terry Jones' portrayal of a dim-witted seaside landlady in the "Minehead By-Election" sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus. Just reviewing the clip myself a few minutes ago, I'm wondering whether that's Captain Black himself sitting there in uniform to whom she's expressing her relief that somebody's spotted that the map he's looking at isn't the A39 at all, but is in fact Stalingrad

Related links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_l0HejEnus (Owain Phyfe - "Maid in Bedlam")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-OBCVsMdzs (Bonnie Tyler - "Here She Comes")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMME4QuxGvw (Steeleye Span - "The Bold Poachers")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYBugb7h5AQ (Monty Python - "Not Much Fun in Stalingrad")

[Carrie]

What a great thread, Skybase Girl!

I really only started writing fan-fic in earnest back in 2003, when I had just had twin girls and was desperate to engage my brain with something other that nappy changing.... Like Elentari, I'd read my way through all the wonderful stories on SHQ and wondered - could I do that?

Unlike Skybase Girl and Clya, I don't find myself being inspired by music for ideas, although I certainly like to listen to it while I'm writing. When I started I wanted to write about the lesser known characters as I felt there were still some opportunity to explore their personalities and backgrounds in more detail.

I adore travelling, and have been fortunate enough to be able to have done so, and I feel setting can be as much of a 'character' as the human ones, so I've liked to use a particular place as a base for inspiration, such as Egypt in 'Obsession and Desire' (although my knowledge of the country was obtained solely from books) Hawaii in 'Blue Hawaii', and Venice in 'Dangerous Liaisons'. I based my Halloween story 'The Village' on my own little backyard, including some of the characters... I'm hoping they won't have read it...

Interpreting a different genre of fiction is a source of ideas for me too, such as crime : (Ochre's detective background to solve the murders in Shadow Whisper) and I have read lots of horror fiction to generate ideas for the Halloween fanfic challenge.
Missing scenes in the TV series are also a great source of ideas for stories, and I was particularly happy with 'Up All Night' - where Ochre and Magenta are off camera in the episode Inferno, and just recently, I've become inspired by a couple of my own pictures - 'Operation Santa' and 'An Unexpected Christmas' which is nice, as it's usually Marion who is inspired by my pics... (and I'm so VERY glad about that!)

Ideas are usually not a problem, it's the execution of them that takes the blood, sweat and toil! I'm struggling at the moment with a story I started for the CS 50th anniversary. I'm stuck on the plot, and not sure which way to go, other than just grind away in the hope that words - any words - on a page will trigger more words....Sometimes it just comes down to Bum - On - Seat... Still, I won't be laughing when I'm looking at another two years and the story still isn't finished!

[Elentari]

CARRIE WROTE:
Ideas are usually not a problem, it's the execution of them that takes the blood, sweat and toil! I'm struggling at the moment with a story I started for the CS 50th anniversary. I'm stuck on the plot, and not sure which way to go, other than just grind away in the hope that words - any words - on a page will trigger more words....Sometimes it just comes down to Bum - On - Seat... Still, I won't be laughing when I'm looking at another two years and the story still isn't finished!

As Hazel and Carrie mentioned - there's that other issue about writing.....the collection of unfinished works.

I've got a Fireball XL5 / Captain Scarlet crossover in bits and pieces that is taking forever to write. There's a start in the story, a sort of explanation about how FB and CS could be working together, but then I got to the Actual Incident.....and I just can't write it. I'm not great with action stuff and as a result I don't like writing it. LOL A few years on and a conversation between the main characters occurred to me (taking place after the Actual Incident) so I wrote it down and it's my favourite bit. Then it all stopped again. Another year or so and an ending of sorts occurred to me so I wrote that. Since then....again nothing. I've saved the (sort of) story under the title 'Fragments'. I have a feeling it is going to stay that way for yonks.

It's not the only unfinished story, alas. Some I've writen are clearly not worth persisting with unless I can incorporate the best bits of them into bigger stories. Others are just bad. Some I used to tinker with during lunch time at work. When I had to retire it was not possible to retrieve them and they would have been wiped, so the versions I have at home are not the updated ones. Sigh. It's a lesson to all that if you save updates to stories in many places, remember to pull it all together occasionally!

Do you have wish lists of stories from other writers in the group? I sure do - especially those posted on SHQ but are still unfinished. (We all know what I mean). LOL

Other that that, I love Hazel's SIQ and would love to read a sequel. Clya Brown's Tina Palamac epic was finished at last and worth the wait (hurrah!) but seeing Brent Cleever (Agent 21) briefly in the story made me wish someone could write more about him....and Tina as well when she worked with him in the USS. It can't be me...God knows I've tried, but the stories don't come.

Can't get blood out of a stone apparently.

[Marion]

Inspiration: unknowable, unfathomable, random and frequently annoying.
Songs can trigger something, sometimes just the titles, sometimes the odd lines. 'Synchronicity' grew out of one line in The Police's 'Wrapped Around Your Finger': You consider me the young apprentice, caught between the Scylla and Charybdis.. 'Valediction' was an exercise in seeing what would happen if I killed off a major character and the impact it would have - especially on Captain Scarlet. From small acorns, etc.

Other stories can come from a picture or a snatch of a film I remember. A few come from just sitting down and starting to write - if the first line is good enough a story will emerge and get hung on to it. I used to get a lot of ideas when I was doing the ironing, for some reason.
To begin with, I threw every idea, every concept and character evaluation into the mix, presuming that the stories wouldn't be good enough to get posted and these ideas would never see the light of day if I didn't use them. I sometimes regret that now as I still get a flash of inspiration and then think 'I've already done that'...
I still sit down and write, I have dozens of beginnings (very few ends as I cannot write to a given conclusion) because I always enjoy seeing what happens next, but sometimes, nothing does. I am currently trying a new idea - merging a Spectrum story into the fabric of a TV21 Comic Stingray story. I don't know if it will work, because, as I previously said, I don't like plotting the stories out so I know the ending, but I will give it a try. It worked for 'Chapter of Accidents' - to a point, anyway.
I have several stories languishing in Development Hell, some of them quite extensive, that sort of petered out for no known reason. The legendary Inspiration Fairy is a fickle creature and sometimes not even chocolate cake will tempt her to come and let you finish what you started.

[Clya Brown]

To everyone who's been so kind as to comment on it, I'm really delighted that the conclusion of the Tina saga has been so well received, so thank you all - but jeez, getting it finished was a nightmare. Trying to fill in all the plot holes is one thing, but then you have to write all the connecting bits just to join them all together - the end result of which can get very long, as I'm sure everybody noticed. As to sources of inspiration other than the music I referenced in the earlier post, "Adam Adamant Lives!" springs to mind, with another obvious one being Joe 90, bearing in mind the capabilities of the device that defined Cassandra's role in the story. Just for the record, the whole thing didn't end anything like the way I originally intended: at the time I was thinking in terms of a gothic melodrama with the house burning down around them, for which of course the source of inspiration was "Jane Eyre". Oh well... we go where the story goes - and the story sometimes takes us in directions that surprise even us.

To Elentari above - I'd actually love to have a go at writing a Brent Cleever/Tina Palamac story, but I have a feeling it could end up attracting unfavourable comparisons with James Bond (which is who Special Agent 21 really is anyway). Also it would involve writing for two heroes - one male, one female - of equal stature, and I'm thinking that could be a difficult scenario to handle. I remember reading that one of the things that made "The Avengers" (the 1960s TV show starring secret agents John Steed and Emma Peel, not the Marvel Comics superheroes) compulsive viewing at the time was that the relationship between them was never clearly defined, so everybody was always wondering if they were going to "get it on", as the expression goes. They never did, of course - and it was suggested that the chemistry we were seeing between them was what you might expect between two people who had already had an affair - but one that had ended amicably, leaving them as intimate friends who understood each other's strengths and weaknesses well enough to enable them to operate as an effective team, without the complications implicit in an ongoing sexual relationship. Brent and Tina would probably need a similar sort of chemistry for the whole thing to work, unless they were placed in a situation where they were adversaries... but then you've got to resolve the issue of how they're going to operate as a team again afterwards.

Just touching on the subject of unfinished works as raised by Carrie, I also have an assortment of fragments that need pulling together one day - and just like Elentari above, one of them's a Fireball XL5/Scarlet crossover - but unfortunately, there are just a few little matters that need to be attended to first. So many things to do, so little time...

[Elentari]

So many things to do, so little time...

I'll admit that detail creeps into my mind on occasions.

Technically, as I'm retired I've got all the time in the world.....but ironically there's a distinct lack of inspiration since swapping work for a very housebound mobility challenged existence. It's not how I envisaged my life to be....but then who does?

As for Agent 21. Like James Bond? Hmm. He doesn't appear to be a drinker, he isn't a playboy, he doesn't seem interested in being a fashion plate either and I can't quite picture him playing roulette at a casino. Perhaps he is a bit too good to write fanfic about. LOL All work and no play and all that.....

A romance between him and Tina? Ah well, it's not uncommon in fiction (books, TV, movies) characters are almost expected to pair up at some point or if they are a couple to split up. We all know it is not a given in real life.....or if it is, I've missed out on a lot. LOL If there was a romance between them we all know how it has to end (damn TV21 for killing her off). So once again I guess it makes Brent and Tina a dull prospect for fanfic.

Still, maybe one day Clya, you will find a plot that works for them both. Fingers crossed!