Writing Inspiration from Movies: How Starman Shaped My Fantasy Romance Character

Writing Inspiration from Movies: How Starman Shaped My Fantasy Romance Character

I get a lot of book inspiration from movies. And since I’ve been a movie fanatic for more than four decades, I’ve got a lot of scenes knocking around inside my brain. Sometimes I have to go back and rewatch the scenes I’m thinking of. The older I get, the harder and harder it is to keep it all packed away in my head.

For Devin (AKA: Dee), the main character in my debut, Angel Redeemed, I kept picturing one of the opening scenes from the movie Starman by John Carpenter.

Angel Redeemed opens with Devin caught in a cycle of grief, now fixated on thoughts of revenge.

Starman is an older film (1984), starring Karen Allen and (a much younger) Jeff Bridges. In simple terms, it’s about an alien who takes the form of a young Wisconsin widow’s deceased husband and convinces her to drive him to his departure point in Arizona, all while being pursued by government agents and a conflicted scientist. But at its core, it’s really about the relationship between the widow and the alien. Especially because she’s forced to grapple with the fact that he looks exactly like the man she just lost.

John Carpenter's Starman

While that isn’t the premise of my story, I pulled heavily from Karen Allen’s character.

In the opening scene of Starman, her character is spiraling in grief. Drunk, alone in her home, surrounded by packed boxes. She has minimal if any lines, but her actions say everything. That emotional state stuck with me. I imagined Devin living in that world for nearly two years, and from there, her character started to take shape.

All this to say, movies can be incredible resources for those small, meaningful moments. Those scenes authors can reshape and reimagine to fit their own stories.

It’s very possible that every movie I’ve ever watched has influenced my writing in some way. I probably can’t name them all, but some, like Starman, stay with you. And if you watch the movie and read my book, you’ll no doubt notice similarities. Hell, you can see them by simply watching the trailer. Check out the trailer for Starman now. (It's old, and a little cheesy, but stick with it!)