Inspiration

I do love a bit of imagery. I love action fantasy and the most technical movements in any action scene. I can't do guns. How much creativity and skill can you show by having guns pointed at each other in a stalemate or masses of soldiers shooting from behind barricades; never hitting anything until, ta-da, the main characters come in and they suddenly turn into Clint Eastwood and shoot everything squarely between the eyes without even looking.

No, with me its all about working around them to make something much more intimate and diverse. Good ol' Neo knows what I mean, don't you? Check out The Matrix Reloaded: Vampire Chateau scene, and you will get just what I mean. F.Y.I, really wanted to use the Burly Brawl scene but it was nowhere near as relevant to what I was getting at.

Everything about that inspires me, the gravity defiance, array of weaponry, bullet stopping psychokinesis, fluid combat, physically unnatural battles, and yes even the swish of the air.
I think that in terms of physical combat that stems from a distorted interpretation of reality, Matrix really ticks the box and I will gladly label it as one of the inspirations behind my work. In fact having watched that clip for now the 5th time I notice that my Hierarchy angel characters bear a resemblence to the twins at the oppening of the scene when they 'phase-out', just my angels look more pleasant as they are not programmed dreadlocked killer stars from "Better Homes".

Shall we take a moment to appreciate Trinity's face? I think so...

Why so serious, Mrs One?

Sorry... Moving swiftly on! My next inspiration, and the reason I started the whole fiction writing shenanigans, is the Halo series. The Master Chief and the technology of Halo was a big 'yes' for me. Having a character who plays Goliath against the clearly unbeatable odds is brilliant because once you have that character established you don't even need to explain how it all happens, the mere fact that the Chief is on the scene is enough to say "Put the kettle on, we got this one in the bag".

My first book in the series owes a lot to the imagery of the technology from Halo in helping me create my own space vessels and alien gadgets. When I first started writing my mind was pretty much set upon the idea of glorious, not gorey, space battles blazing through the vacuum and eventually flattening whole cities with single shot weaponry. That stuff still interests me and I still put it in, but not nearly too as much emphasis as I did with the intimate physical combat.


By the end of the first book, beginning of the second I realised that although I had created a universe of futuristic technology and thrown in some alien creatures, it wasn't these elements that had kept me writing to the very end. It was the 'goliath' characters that made it fun. What Neo and the Chief do that is against many typical action heroes is that they not only win the good fight, they do what hundreds couldn't do together. They single-handedly save planets or people or just their own skin while defeating unending numbers of people trying to kill them. In earlier posts I have mentioned how I like the idea of 'godly' characters whose powers are limitless and unstoppable, it's brilliant to see these characters in action, constantly thrown in the corner but inevitably rising as the champion.  My second book moves its attention to the powers of these 'Spartans' in war, and how much of a difference they make. The two following clips really capture the ideologies of 'one man conquers all' and the 'godly warriors' that I have incorporated into my own concept

My final main inspiration is none other than the Final Fantasy series. This series really combines fantasy and action together beautifully in my opinion. Its this series that inspired me to take the real world and add new elements and possibilites to it. Like Harry Potter with the addition of magic, or my own book with the Hierarchy and their powers of creation.  But the Final Fantasy stories don't necessarily add such a blatant new dimension to their fights, sometimes the only real difference is the speed and the heights that  the character can so freely leap through the air. Although Halo and The Matrix have already added similar elements in their own stories, their emphasis is so less focused upon who the character is and instead we see what they can do.

Final Fantasy is all about characters who when it comes down to it are just feeling and living in the same way that film characters do, its just they have much bigger problems and a different way to deal with them; rarely do you see characters in the series talk about a problem, they prefer to shoot into the air and clash into powerful battles. The other thing I love about the series is the colour and vibrancy that it brings to fantasy fights, which, as in the above clips, normally are filled with black, dark shades of blue and green or something similar. Here are two more clips, one being my favourite combat scene ever made (though admittedly this one is dark), the other is an example of combat with a bit more grace and colour. Hope you enjoy

So these are my inspirations, in case anyone wants to get me an early christmas present you should have an idea what I like now ;)
Only kidding!
My First book is so close to being out now, hooray, though who knows if any bookstores will actually buy it :P. Thanks for reading folks

Enjoy the video goodness!
L.H