Story Backgrounds
I find it amusing when writers are asked on how they got their inspiration. I frequently can't remember. So, I started these notes as a way to cope, and to prevent any questions of that nature. Some of the notes are really short, while others are very long. It depends on how much I remembered of these pieces (most of these were written a while after I'd written the story).
Currently, this page is kinda under re-construction. The fics listed here will (hopefully shortly) be moved to their own page. They are mostly Tomorrow People and Tomorrow's Future.
Also, I've divided off some of the stuff to other pages, but please note that they are all rather out-of-date.
Some notes on my Earth: Final Conflict fics.
Some notes on my Highlander fics.
Some notes on my Forever Knight fics.
Some notes on my Power Rangers fics.
(In addition, many of the longer "Opposites Attract" fics have afterwords which are much the same thing.)
A Change of Perspective:
My first piece of fanfiction in several years. At the point where I started, I'd just seen "Eye for an Eye" and I was also fascinated by the Watchers, starting with their first episode ("The Watchers"). I think that the discussion of "could a Watcher be a pre-immortal" was an early discussion that led me to this story. I contributed my own part with "could an Immortal keep a tattoo" (something that comes up every so often on the Highlander list).
I wasn't particularly in the mood to use the Highlander characters, so I went off with my own. Greer's nickname came almost immediately. Shortly thereafter, she acquired her first and last names. My friend, El Marks, who lived down the hall in my dorm got the honour of helping me figure out how to kill Greer for the first time (and was rather amused when I explained that she had to revive after that). Alberta and Leland appeared shortly after that, then Michael (who later became important) and Robert. As a small note, Alberta is driving a car my mother used to own. Greer's tattoo is on her left wrist because the only Watcher I'd seen when this was written was Joe's - they can be on either the left or right wrists.
These Daughters and These Sisters: When I wrote Greer, I wasn't expecting her to come back, much less start a franchise. This was the second of Greer's stories. I thought it was very silly that she'd never met the Highlander characters in the Highlander series universe, and so I resolved to take care of that. The only thing that I left unresolved when I was writing this was *why* Greer had come to Seattle (my choice of names for where the series is set). I was surprised as anyone when Robert turned bad. Jasper wasn't supposed to be bad, either, just poorly trained (Jasper, incidentally, is the name of my Alma Mater's mascot. The real Jasper, a bulldog, is very nice and well trained). Greer turned suicidal on me near the end, and it was quite an effort to get her not to die. I refused to have a swordfight in this one after someone pointed out all the foulups to me in the swordfight in Change of Perspective, so I ended up with Greer getting knifed.
Greer came back. Again. The origin of this story was that I wanted to introduce a friend of mine, Hilary McLachlan, to the new version of The Tomorrow People, since she was familiar with the old but had never seen the new (it has not aired yet in Australia). Hilary liked the character of Greer, and she had asked me for another story, so I started serializing one, a crossover, for her. This time, I had a mad bomber as the problem that cemented the two series. I live in Sacramento, where we seem to have our own bomber, unfortunately, who got his Luddite tract published all over the place. Greer, in this story, ended up a block away from his last bombing here (a lobbyist's office downtown).
The story pretty much languished later (Hilary had email problems) until I met Wendy Kelley, who offered to Read for me. Greer herself was rather amused to be meeting Adam and company. Since I was writing several other stories at the same time (Watchful Eyes and Limitations, neither of which is yet finished) I had to jump Greer along on her timeline, and had them marry offscreen, at least until I finished writing Limitations. Greer got a middle name, and retained her maiden name, Michael got a middle name, and the villian accidentally got named after my father. Lisa, unexpectedly, got into the Watchers, mainly because I wanted to come up with an amusing theory as to why she disappeared after the first story. The Tomorrow People timeline got bumped up in years so that the first story of the TP happened during the events (in the HL universe) of Finale, moving it from approx. 1992 to 1995.
Understanding was originally titled "Bloody Bonds" but I decided that it brought up a connotation that I didn't like, so I changed the title. This little piece came up while I was writing "With Human Blood and Human Tears", as I wanted to visualize something I mentioned in my story.
This was originally two stories, with Greer dealing with Methos in one, and with Adam's problems after Living Stones in the other. However, Greer wasn't sufficiently busy in the original start of this story, so I found myself inserting the other one into this one. The first draft of this thing had to do with the events of Living Stones, particularly the ending. At the time I started, it looked as if the writers had been careless in allowing the TP to kill. So, I wrote part of a story in which the pods *did* die, and the TP were responsible, and in which they lost their powers. Or at least Adam and probably Megabyte did. Later I found out that the pod beings did, indeed, escape. When that happened, I altered my story so that it took that into account, and even though Adam loses his powers for two parts of the story, it's only temporary. Amusingly, at this point we started discussing on the TP discussion list if a TP could lose his/her powers and under what circumstances (among other things).
Greer's attitude towards Methos changed several times during the various drafts. She goes from fairly friendly to fairly hostile. I think she'd be very uncomfortable with an Immortal in the Watchers. Interestingly enough, my favourite character on the show is Joe Dawson, followed closely by Methos, yet Greer doesn't trust either of them. One of my favourite scenes in the story is where Greer ups and chases Adam with her sword. I had a great time picturing that in my head, and then I figured out how to write it. The myths that Methos and Greer talk about are variations on various lore about faeries, elves, and changelings. The title refers to the fact that both the TP and the Immortals are basically Human beings, with Human feelings.
A "Woeful Times" vignette that actually ended up posted on the list (and, unlike *any* of my other stuff, never got commented upon). This is Melinda's telling of her breaking out. I thought this was an important piece because Melinda is a third-generation TP, and her attitudes would be different since she grew up around the TP.
I think I mentioned that this story was written as a kind of birthday present for the Tomorrow People creative list. It's a prelude for the story "Random Acts of Kindness", and it was mostly concieved as a reason for Megabyte to have the tickets to the Olympics.
This is one of the many pieces where I have written one draft, tossed it, and then wrote the story again. Other stories that I've written this way include "Random Acts of Kindness", "Mistakes", and "Woeful Times".
One of the typos I encountered while revising "Differing Varieties" was what I called a Telepathic Ghost. It occured because of a very late change when I had Megabyte appear later in the story than he was at the time, and I forgot to excise all mentions of there being three TP instead of two. I've since found and corrected all of them (I think) so you can only see them if you have a posted version of DV (from TPFICT or HLFIC, the lists I posted it on). Telepathic Ghosts originally dealt with the TP encountering a mysterious young woman who may or may not be one of them. That was going fine until I was writing in a scene with Ami on the Island, and suddenly found I had a second TP, Oliver, who had his own story to tell. Peter Tilton is a real person, but he's not an accountant with a son. Instead, he's a college friend (and Pete, if you read this, I've been waiting most of 3-4 years to return your tapes).
My original plan, I think, was to have three related stories that I was going to write in one whole batch: "Telepathic Ghosts", "Visions Lost" (which became "Mistakes") and "No Part in Killing". I actually got two of the three done, with the third still in progress. Telepathic Ghosts was to be the one posted on the list, Mistakes/Visions Lost was to be posted on my archive page along with "No Part". However, it soon became apparent that I would need to post "Mistakes" to explain events in "Telepathic Ghosts", and so I did.
Mistakes is unlike any other story I have attempted. I used a technique in Mistakes where I took scenes and dialogue from "Telepathic Ghosts", copied them over, and rewrote the point of view. I'd experimented with the technique earlier in the vignette "A Musical Interlude", but this was my full test. Adding to the difficulty was the fact that while "Telepathic Ghosts" and "Mistakes" shared scenes, the stories are different. "Ghosts" is very much the story of Oliver, his family, and their past. "Mistakes" was the story of Melinda, Perrin, and their difficulties in getting back to their future. Of course, because of their shared scenes and dialogue, the two stories share some action, and pretty much the same climax, although it means different things to different people in the stories. Of course, making sure everybody had a plausible reason for their actions in the shared scenes and dialogue was quite fun.
So far, this is my only 70's TP piece. I wrote it for two reasons. First of all, I wanted to see if I cold get into the characters. Secondly, I wanted to have it ready for TPFICT's first birthday. I chose to cover the departure of Stephen and Tyso (after "Into the Unknown").
I never thought I'd write a story that had the Power Rangers in it. I guess that I can write most anything, given sufficient motivation. And, yes, I'm a PR fan. I admit it. Reluctantly. So what happened? They wrote off a character rather badly (I'm sorry, folks, going to live with an alien girlfriend doesn't cut it). This story is set after "Living Stones" on the Tomorrow People end, and between "Rangers of Two Worlds" (after Billy leaves) and "Hawaii Zeo" (before Jason loses his powers). It's about the team's reaction to losing Billy, and also to a set of new people who may or may not be their enemies.
I wanted to get away from Greer, so I ended up writing this piece. It's set pre-"Starcrossed" (The Highlander episode, not the Starman fanzine), and it features one of my favourite characters, Fitzcairn. I originally had the idea of an Immortal whose Watchers kept getting killed. Later, I met the bad guys. Michael (Change of Perspective, Differing Varieties, With Human Blood) is in here, and I discovered a bit of his past (mentioned again in With Human Blood). There is a very slight bedroom scene in here, but if you blink, you'll miss it.
This is the winner of the award for the most titles given to a story in drafts. It started out as "Children of Tomorrow", went to something else, became "Potential", and finally wandered into being "Random Acts of Kindness". The first version of this story was a bust, and I was about to give up on it when I wrote "Birthday Gifts". And then this story won another award for longest story written in one day (10 pages). The first draft of this version went to my regular beta readers, Wendy and Kyrie, but the second also went to Todd Andrews, a friend who is also a Starman fan. I went through several more drafts, expanding about half the scenes, rewriting about three fourths of the dialogue, and totally rewriting the scene where Scott meets his coworker at the mall (the final version only contains one paragraph of the original scene). I don't know why I chose Megabyte and Jade for this story. Perhaps I needed a break from writing Adam, although I don't find either Jade nor Megabyte easy to write. I only used two TP because more would have caused a problem in the story. Therefore, Megabyte only refers to Adam. Also, I was probably as surprised as some of my readers when Lucy showed up. My characters tend to surprise me.
A kind of tie-up story, before "Hoppers" and after "Telepathic Ghosts"/"Mistakes". It's what happens with Oliver after he arrives in the future. I hadn't planned to cover this, but several people reqested it.
This was an experiment to write the same scene and same dialogue with different Points of View. Also, I wanted to show Greer as a Watcher, long before she became an Immortal. Knowing me, Jeremy Boulder will probably show up in my stories again. The technique used in this was also later used in "Telepathic Ghosts" and "Mistakes".
This was written as an experiment also, to try the "song challenge" of the FKFIC list on another fandom. As the introduction says, the song "Que Sera" was an influence when I wrote "With Human Blood". I wrote most of it in quite a hurry, since I was supposed to send it to Wendy Kelley, who was leaving on a plane the following morning and would be out of the country for six weeks. Needless to say, I got it through in enough time . :)
A cute little vignette that I think I wrote after one of my readers complained about the lack of pieces about the second generation TPs. At least two of these characters are being used in later stories (Theona in "Moment of Grieving", "Mistakes" and "Tale to Tell", Mikey in "Tale to Tell").
The "Woeful" vignettes (A Moment of Darkness, Recordkeeping, Pessimism, Sunset, Strange Ways, A Moment of Grieving):
I occassionally like to write little pieces associated with a particular story. For some reason, Woeful Times seems to generate a lot of them. "A Moment of Darkness" is actually written before I started "Woeful", and was somewhat of an inspiration, while "Recordkeeping" was an attempt to look at Melinda and Marm. "Pessimism" was Greer's POV on the aftermath of "Woeful", while "Sunset" is Greer musing on her 100th birthday. "Strange Ways" is an attempt to use the "Song Challenge" from FKFIC in a different fandom, and uses the song "Strange Ways" (from the Ace of Base album, The Bridge) to tell about Greer, Adam, and Adam's daughter. The latest is "A Moment of Grieving", which is a little bit of a sequel to several of the other vignettes (in particular, MoD, Pessimism, and Strange Ways). It was supposed to be a talk between Greer and Melinda, but imagine my surprise when I got Theona Newman instead! So, the story's more about her than Greer, really. Or both equally.
My way of dealing with a discusson topic on TPDIS. In this case, how spouses/SOs of TP deal with their talented other half. And in this piece, Elizabeth Skye dealing with her talented family. It was so natural to use her (I was working on her in "Never Alone") because I know a lot about her, and the reason I set this after "Part of Growing Up" was because I thought that Melinda's Breakout would trigger her fears.
A quick return to "With Human Blood". I don't remember why I suddenly decided to write a Joe piece. I do know that it was during a Highlander episode, though.
This is, in a weird way, an offshoot of "To Absent Friends". That story is about the loss of friends and teammates and how to cope, and this one just wandered off on that theme. However, this is a TF vignette about Lisa, and how she feels about leaving her friends so that she can be normal ('normalcy' is the state of being normal, so basically, she's reacing for a normal state that she can no longer really have.)
Me, working on viewpoint again. This time, it's a little piece about Greer that happens during the events of "Mistakes". The character I used was a minor character from "Woeful Times" named Tom, who is the cemetery caretaker.
This is a case of me not being able to get "Send in the Clowns" (the song) out of my head while trying to plot more of "Limitations" (the Greer/Michael reunion story). The song fit the mood so well that I appropriated it for my story.
I was not having a good day when I wrote this. I don't remember the exact circumstances of the day, but it was sufficiently bad that I had to write something. It was also the day before my birthday, so I guess I had to write about one of Greer's. Greer's one of those people whose birthday and Christmas happen in one big heap, and sometimes that can make things painful if too many powerful memories are associated with both.
Don't ask me why I wrote this one. It just wrote itself for no particular reason other than it could. As a point of trivia, Meeshee is named after one of my regular commenters, Temesha.
For some reason, the four people in this piece (Jennise "Jen" Newman, Thessalonia "Thess" Beller, Marmaduke "Marm" Damon, and Melinda Skye) keep wanting to shop whenever I put them together. Don't know if they're telling me something or what. This is Thess' public debut. It may be Jennise's as well. This piece was written to balance out "So This is Chirstmas", as it is significantly goofier than what I normally write.