On Finding Inspiration In A Car Park - Tamsin Cooke

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Stunt Double, the fantastic new novel by Tamsin Cooke. As this guest post goes to show, you really can find inspiration anywhere!

Finding inspiration in a car park!

Inspiration can strike absolutely anywhere – in dreams, while dog walking, from music or paintings, - you name it. Inspiration can even hit you when sitting in a car at the side of the road in the middle of an industrial estate!

I knew that I wanted to start a new story and this time I wanted to have a boy as the main character. But I didn’t have a solid idea. I’d been thinking about storylines involving travel or mistaken identity.

Then one evening, feeling hot, sweaty and rather irritable (although you probably didn’t need to know that), I sat watching the door to my teenage son’s free running club. He’d been having a fantastic time - running, vaulting, somersaulting, swinging – basically doing anything he could to get from one point to another in the fastest possible way. But now he was late and in a hurry.

At last, he emerged. He ran through the car park dodging vehicles, vaulted the wall and swung over the bonnet of our car.

‘Don’t you dare!’ I shouted before he could leap straight through the back open window.

He opened the door and flopped inside.

But I didn’t turn on the engine. Instead, I froze. My son had reminded me of a stunt performer. And it occurred to me – wouldn’t that be the most amazing job for a teenager? It’s full of risk, adventure, and glamour. Suddenly I remembered the Fall Guy – a television programme I watched as a child about an undercover

stuntman who captures criminals using his skills and knowledge of stunts. I used to love it.

‘Are we going then?’ asked the impatient teenager.

Still, I didn’t move.  It was a real ‘Eureka!’ moment.

When I get an idea for a story, images fly into my head. I conjure up scenes and they play out in my brain like an act from a movie.  At that moment, although sitting in the car in the industrial estate, in my mind I could see a bridge – the sort that splits into two parts allowing a ship to go through, like Tower Bridge in London. A boy was scrambling up one of the rising wings of the bridge. Running as hard as he could, the wing rose steeper and steeper. He grabbed onto the edge and pulled himself up, until he was perched on the ridge, ready to jump across.

‘Cut’ shouted the director.

Suddenly I noticed the wires connecting his body to a crane in case he fell. And there were camera crew filming his every move.

‘Mum, are we going?’ said my son, jolting me back to reality.

‘Would you like to be a stunt performer when you’re older?’ I said, turning on the engine.

‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.

‘Never mind.’

I drove home as fast as I could (not like a stunt driver I must add!) and started Googling stuntmen.  To my dismay, I discovered stunt performers have to be over the age of 18. Arggh! Then I realized this was going to be fiction. I could make it work. Plus being a teenage stunt double was no longer just exciting, it was illegal too!

Over the next few weeks, I scoured the Internet, researching movies and stunt performers. I talked to a director and met a real life stuntwoman  - who might be one of the coolest people in the world!  Every time I learnt something knew, another new idea sparked. The more I learned, the more inspired I became.  Scenes flew into my head and I frantically scribbled down the ideas.  I am a planner. I can’t just write and let a story evolve. Soon I had the whole story mapped out.

I condensed all of my ideas into a one-page synopsis and sent it off to my agent Anne Clarke who then sent it off to my publishers. To my utter joy, Oxford University Press said YES. For those of you old enough to remember the orange juice advert on TV, I felt like the man from Delmonte had said Yes!!! Just like movies are given the green light to start filming, I was given the green light to start writing.  Stunt Double was born!

Huge thanks to Tamsin for the fabulous guest post and don't forget to check out my review of this fantastic adventure story.

 

Guest Post: Fictional Inspirations - Andy Briggs

 

BEST BOOKISH OR FICTIONAL INSPIRATIONS

When I was asked to write a blog on my fictional inspirations, my brain somersaulted into what a feared was an infinite loop which would result in a single answer: everything. But then I took a step back from the question and, while writing the second book in THE INVENTORY series, I started to wonder exactly what inspired me…

First, the whole notion of my new series, THE INVENTORY: IRON FIST, was inspired by comic books. More specifically, the adverts at the back of old comics that used to promise x-ray specs, hypnotic hats and gloves that let you clamber up walls. It was all very inspiring, even if the final product that arrived at your door was, basically, rubbish.

The comics themselves were a huge inspiration. Dashing characters doing impossible things was always an attraction to me. Plus, being a reluctant reader, they really pushed me forward so rapidly that I started craving books.

Then the books came thick and fast, from The Hobbit through to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Tarzan. From The Lost World to my huge collection of Fighting Fantasy (Deathtrap Dungeon being my favourite) and Choose Your Own Adventure books. The pattern, in retrospect, was one of adventure, escapism and “what if…?”

The Hobbit showed me that entire worlds could be constructed on the page, populated by incredible creatures that had their own languages and customs. It was all a far cry from my childhood town of Liverpool.

While I could escape to other lands with Tolkien, it was Chocolate Factory that taught me adventure and magic could be found in the centre of a dull industrial town, which is something I could relate to.

While lessons in school focused on what we know, it was the book, The Lost World, written by Sherlock’s Arthur Conan Doyle, that opened my eyes to the fact that there are still things in the world that we don’t know about. Even now parts of the Amazon remain unexplored and there are swathes of ocean we have never ventured into; and new species are being discovered every year. This book inspired me so much that, as soon as I was able, I started travelling the world as much as possible (even going to the same location that inspired Doyle to write the book). It was while I was in the Amazon jungle that I was further inspired to create a story called Legendary, which I later wrote and produced as a feature film. That was something I never thought I would do while reading the book in school.

One book that stopped me in my tracks was The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the first of Douglas Adams’ amazing series. It taught me that ideas could be wacky and still be compelling reading. For me, this went beyond creating mere fantasy realms, but entire universes with infinite probabilities that anything could happen. And that you could also be funny at the same time.

Looking back on these inspirations, it’s no surprise that my own stories tend to combine travelling the world with some sort of adventure and puzzle. However, even as I write this, this most surprising thing of all is that the 11 year old me – reading all those books – didn’t have an inkling of where they would take me. That is the true power of a book, they don’t just change your view of the world. They make you want to go out there and want to change things yourself.

Andy Briggs is a screenwriter, producer and author of the Hero.com, Villain.net and Tarzan series. Andy has worked on film development for Paramount and Warner Bros, as well as working with Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee and producer Robert Evans. With a strong social media following, Andy tours the UK regularly, doing festival, school and library events.

Look out for my review and a giveaway of The Inventory: Iron Fist coming later this morning!