Inspirations - 2024 catch up!

When I started this blog/podcast I intended to write short articles talking about the inspirations behind each story, partly to remind myself of what I was thinking when I wrote the story. Then I got to the middle of 2024, and fell hilariously behind. One of my three regular readers asked about these, so I'm going to catch up now...

By her red hood you shall know her, for she walketh the narrow path that leadeth unto grandmother’s house, and the wolf’s maw

This one is special to me! Red riding hood is my favourite fairytale, because in its modern incarnation where the girl breaks the rules and is alright, the message is that sometimes there are no consequences. But life always has consequences, just not the simplistic ones of children's stories. So I have a story where red riding hood outsmarts her wolf, but grows old wondering if she missed something.

For inspiration, I looked at different retellings of red riding hood, from Roald Dahl's gunslinger in Revolting Rhymes to the fascinating werewolf movie Company of Wolves. In particular, I was interested in versions of this story that play with fusions of the girl and the wolf. In games, I drew on the Diablo-style roguelike Ravenswatch's character Scarlet and fighting game Darkstalker's psychotic little girl BB Hood.

This one was actually recorded for Canberra's ArtSound radio and broacast December 2024, with the cast doing an amazing job.

Incidentally, my least favourite fairytale is the three little pigs, for its message that hard work will save you. It will not.

Red Lips Sink Ships

About 15 years ago, I wanted to try writing a murder mystery. Starting from a catchy title, I read virtually every classic murder mystery set on a cruise ship, from famous ones like Death on the Nile, to curios like Obelists at Sea. It went nowhere, because it turns out I don't like writing mysteries. But, that reading gave me broad understanding of the classic murder mystery. The one writer of mysteries I loved was John Dickson Carr, the macarbe locked room murder specialist, so of course this had to be a locked room mystery.

Anyone who knows their old murder mystery authors can guess the inspiration for Orpheus' parents.

To finally get this done, I took ideas from that inital research and created a mordant critique of the murder mystery, and the femme fatale trope. My view, obvious from the story, is that there are no femme fatales, just men who make awful choices. So, solving the mystery isn't really the point of this story, and hopefully that is obvious by the end. It's really a story about how genre assumptions influence perceptions, and it's not remotely subtle.

Research on this one was fun because I had an excuse to watch some old movies with alleged dangerous women - Gilda, The Blue Dhalia, The Blue Angel. Spoiler, they did nothing wrong.

In the end, this one is a bit glib, but that is the reflection of a writer suffering in a genre he does not care for, determined to finish the story by any means necessary.

I'm sure Orpheus March will return, and solve further crimes while both they and the writer hate every moment, and do everything they can to disrupt proceedings.

Cravings of Fathers and Mermaids

This one is inspired by Rakugo, Japanese storytelling, and was written to be short/simple for public performance. And performed in public it was, at Canberra shows The Noosh & Alias Cabaret. Interestingly a super-short 5 minute version was still comprehensible!

I really like the leisurely and playful start to this one but alas that had to be cut to fit the short live performance timeslot.

Obviously this one was about the difference between romantic fantasies and grisly reality.

I probably should have given the mermaid a name with an aquatic pun, but that just felt like going too far!

My teaching assistants, the wee folk

This one was intended to star a burlesque performer, with the idea being that they will initially get along well with the faeries, but the secret less glamorous life of grant applications and making costumes will break the spirit of the fair folk. I switched to a teacher because it was funnier to have more contrast between the lifestyles between the faeries and the protagonist. Also, I have briefly been a teacher, and could draw on that experience.

This one also marks a return to comedy. I remember that I was busy with work at the time I wrote this and made this silly just for my own relief and amusement.

The Leers and Prances of the Upsetting Mr W

One of my friends who listens to every episode of the podcast absolutely hated this one. Mission accomplished?

For years, I have been sure that I knew the secret origin of Waluigi - the actor idea is not mine, I think it was first raised in a games magazine, but it resonates for me. What I wanted to do was pull together every scrap of information about Waluigi, and tell a coherent story about this nonsense character. Fortunately, these is a massive amount of somewhat serious speculation online. I really wanted to convey that he embodies Luigi's fantasies, and that he loves Luigi. To fit the character, by design this one was a bit raw and gross.

Anyway I got that out of my system.

OR DID I!?!?!

The enchantress’ suffocating bounty of olives and pigs

The big idea here is Circe turning sailors into trees, and getting allergies. I have very bad allergies so I was absolutely writing my own pain.

There is an immense body of art and philosophy around Circe - whether animals are happier than humans, etc. I enjoyed sampling a range of these works during my research phase. For me, I think the lesson of many ancient legends is that stupidity/recklessness is a sin - if you're an idiot around an extremely powerful person or being, you had it coming. Circe is just a lady enjoying a nice life on her island, stop bothering her.

The American Standard for Frankensteins

One of my friends runs show dogs, and through them I have seen a show and learnt that dogs are judged by how well they adhere to the ideal type of the breed. And in fact, there are differences between different breeds standards. The Frankenstein's monster famously varies greatly from the original book and movie versions, so I had the idea to have a dog show for these monsters.

I also wanted to riff on the female mad scientist, and the social pressures they face - always looking good, even when digging up corpses, for example.

Re-reading Mary Shelley's original book gave me the final element of the story - the idea of a monster creator not abandoning it, but helping it reach its full monster potential. I did not expect this to be a story about the monster creator as mother, but after re-reading the original book I knew that was where I needed to go. The right decision for the monster may just mean suffering for the rest of the human race. But, the monster will have a great time.

I watched a few of the movies - Bride of Frankenstein was excellent, as was Peter Cushing's heel turn as the doctor in the British film series. Also, the Frankenstein musical is surprisingly decent, and as expected Junji Ito delivered a horrifying comic adaptation - both of these are notable for some very clever tweaks to the original story that heightened the horror. On the dog shows end - the mockumentary Best in Show is a great time.

The scissor horseman snips a wedding

This was written in a week for a contest to fit the theme "ribbon-cutting" and the genre comedy. In Australia, we have the famous incident of a right-wing extremist cutting the ribbon on the Sydney Habour Bridge opening. I took that as the seed for a similar figure tormenting a man over decades.

Obviously this one had a lot of jokes, but I still wanted to add something macarbe to the ending to raise tension before the final punchline.

This was also performed live in abridged version, something I'm aiming to do more often.

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Well - that catches us up! We are two years into this project, and I've finished 25 stories (a couple not published yet because they were developed for anthologies/contests). In the near future I plan on recording a bonus episode for the podcast with some thoughts, and perhaps some insights I've gathered into my own writing quirks/obsessions.