Q&A: Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

When Douglas Adams was asked this question, he used to respond, “A small mail order firm in Cleveland.”

Early Team

So where do I get my ideas? I’m reluctant to answer that question because, you know, lawsuits and all that. But everything is inspired by something, and none of my stories ended up very similar to the stories that inspired them. I’ve been accused of drawing inspiration from Cowboy Beebop and Witchblade, neither of which I’ve ever watched or read. So I might as well set the record straight. Here are a few of the characters and stories that jump-started my imagination. Beware of spoilers if you haven’t read all my books.

I don’t think Bloodhunters would exist without Star Wars. Back in high school, I drew a lot of fanfiction comic books, and Return of the Jedi was a huge influence on my stories. In the earliest drafts of Bloodhunters, Bloodstone was basically Boba Fett, but I think we can agree the character evolved in a very different direction. At the time, there were only three Star Wars movies, and Fett only had a few minutes of screen time. In the canon of the time, Fett’s entire personality could be summed up as “ruthless bounty hunter.” Everything about the character’s out-of-helmet identity, I had to make up on my own.

Meanwhile, Whisper was kinda-sorta inspired by Boushh, Leia’s bounty hunter disguise in Return of the Jedi. That connection isn’t as easy to see anymore. In the earliest days, the “big reveal” was that Whisper was actually a woman (I’m a sucker for Mulan-type stories), but that didn’t seem like such a big thing to hide, so I had to give her a bigger secret.

Raven, oddly enough, was partly inspired by the video game character Earthworm Jim. In my mind, the way her suit carries her is similar to how Jim’s spacesuit works.

Early Trenyn

Trenyn originally went by the nickname “Stiletto” because they were always going to have a few blades floating around their head. The early design had them wearing a headband that enhanced their telekinesis. The idea of a telepath with muted powers might have come from the Star Trek TNG episode, “The Loss.” In the episode, Deanna feels debilitated for losing her abilities, even though it just puts her on the same level as everyone else on the ship.

Dervish doesn’t really have a direct inspiration, because there’s shapeshifters all over media. But the idea of her being a gift for Vermon may have come from the Star Trek TNG episode, “The Perfect Mate.” Or it might have been inspired by the pilot episode of Firefly, where River is transported as if she’s cargo.

Vik was partially inspired by an NES game called “Low G Man.” It’s about a guy who can jump really high, thanks to an anti-gravity backpack. The game is no masterpiece, but it’s an underrated gem. It got me thinking, “What if the same tech sci-fi uses for artificial gravity and hovercars was implanted into a human?” and Vik was born.

Yna was originally named “Ia,” but the capital I looked too much like a lowercase L. She came about because I was sick of “Human Torch”-style characters having no drawbacks. It seemed so convenient that you can just make a suit out of unstable particles, and that a person can literally turn into fire without any negative health effects. Terra from Final Fantasy VI may also have been an inspiration.

Early Panther

In the earliest drafts, Panther was a werecat. He used hormone injections to control his transformation between human and cat-humanoid forms. He had no direct inspiration, I just love cats and always try to work cat-like characters into my stories. When I introduced Galeans in a later draft, Panther’s power felt sort of redundant. Plus the team already had a shapeshifter, making Panther sort like a limited version of Dervish. I almost kept him as a Galean, but changed my mind. I later put a Galean on the crew in book 3.

Zak isn’t inspired by anyone, he just evolved for story’s sake. Though for his personality, I often had Link from the 1989 “Legend of Zelda” cartoons in my head.

Yeela’s more complicated. Originally Trenyn was going to have a pet drone that followed them around everywhere, held aloft by their telekinesis. I tabled that idea until book 3, and decided to give Zak a drone. But sometime during book 3’s intro, I decided Yeela was too interesting to let go, and she became the drone.

Vex is a long story. Early on I envisioned her as an enemy for the original team. Whisper would have a child, which would be artificially aged by a villain, then brainwashed and turned against the team. Elements of that story became Wisp. The final version of Vex takes some inspiration from Chloe from Life is Strange.

Glik

Glik was based on a virtual “paper doll” I created in the 90s. The base doll had a transparent chest, and you could see his organs beating. Originally it was going to be a doll of a human, but I made it an alien so I wouldn’t have to worry about drawing the organs right.

Wisp was an unrelated short story I wrote in the 90s, also to go along with a paper doll. I was going through severe depression at the time, and I kept thinking what the “perfect life” would be like. Then I started thinking about reincarnation, and how cool it would be to live multiple lives in different time periods, keeping the experience from each one. The original story was magical rather than technological. Fitting Wisp’s story into the Bloodhunters was a bit like fitting a square peg into a round hole, but I don’t regret it.

Lyryssa wasn’t really inspired by anyone in particular. She wasn’t meant to join the team, but her presence really helped advance the plot, so I kept her. I have a loved one who suffers from chronic pain, so I thought it would be nice to depict someone facing the same battle.