As someone within the local parkour/freerunning community, I never have to look very far for inspiration when it comes to movement. Even just within our local scene we have so much talent and diversity in style – it makes for a wellspring of creative stimuli, whatever you're doing. My repeated yet-unsuccessful attempts to do B-kicks and Aerials aside, I'm definitely more a parkour than freerunner practitioner, but if it's one thing I am pretty practiced at, it's observing others. Though my (currently) limited skillset probably begs to differ, watching others train at jams or gatherings has been both really helpful on a technical level, and extremely interesting from a creative standpoint. It's natural then with my love of dynamic action in fiction that I incorporated parkour and freerunning elements into No More Heroes... specifically, in writing characters who practice the discipline in their nightly escapades.

The characters I speak of make up the secondary team of Vigilantes in the novel, and within their group they encompass some of the 'types' of practitioners you'll often find within the parkour and freerunning community. One is primarily a parkour practitioner; another is well-versed in both practices, but tends to incorporate more tricks into their movements; the third is learned in aspects of both, but is more casual in their approach and their use of either discipline. These three incorporate their practices into their Vigilante duties not just in terms of urban exploration and chase sequences, but also into their fighting styles, which – even in having three 'parkour superheroes' – made for some nice diversity within the team and their dynamics with each other.

I drew from many different sources (both real and fictional) when it came to writing the action scenes and moments in No More Heroes, but one of these aforementioned secondary Vigilantes I largely modelled after a practitioner I know, who regularly amazes and inspires me with their skill and approach to training. Their style of movement in particular is one I really love to watch – it's a strong, clean and confident way of moving, purposeful and steadfast. While there's a pretty clear distinction between their personalities, this practitioner was definitely a pretty strong influence on the way I ended up shaping and writing the Vigilante in question, just through their style of movement.

But that's enough of that for now! Below is a short playlist I created with some parkour and freerunning videos I like – in particular, I aimed to include ones that had some good examples of flow. If your parkour terminology is a little lacking, that's okay – you'll probably have a pretty good idea of what I mean after watching some of these. After you've had your fill of sweet moves, don't forget to check out the link to the excerpt of Chapter 3 of No More Heroes​ at the end of this post!

Thanks for reading, folks. If you're interested in seeing some of the parkour and freerunning action in No More Heroes for yourself, don't forget you can get it in print and digital editions either on this website, or from Amazon or Kobo. Enjoy the rest of your weekends!

I've been creating playlists by the handful for the No More Heroes YouTube channel lately, and yesterday I was looking up parkour/freerunning, longboarding and fixed gear etc. videos that would 1. Be useful research/inspiration material, and 2. fit the aesthetic of The City for a playlist of the same name.  Specifically, I was trying to find videos of the aforementioned at night, since most of No More Heroes is set during the dark hours. While I was trying to look for aggressive inline/freeskating videos (also set at night) I found out that LED wheels are a thing. Oh yes.

As a parkour practitioner I spend a lot more time on my feet than on wheels – but I guess I should have figured(?). Folks have light up wheels for their bikes nowadays, why not something similar for small wheels too? Sure made my search for nighttime videos a lot easier anyway. You can check out some of the freeskating videos I found at the playlist below!

​(By the way – some of those wheels can spark as well. Hella yeah.)

There aren't any freestyle inline skaters in No More Heroes, but there's definitely one who will be making an entrance in the next instalment. After this very educational research session, methinks I'll be giving them some of those LED wheels too. In the meanwhile, if you'd like to see any of the other movement disciplines I mentioned in literary form, don't forget to check out No More Heroes either on this website or on Amazon or Kobo. Have a good weekend, everyone!

 As well as posting content on the things that Inspired me past-tense while I was writing No More Heroes, I'm also going to be posting some of the things that I come across as I continue planning and writing more stories from the Vigilante universe. I haven't touched my second book draft since the end of NaNoWriMo last year, but the ideas have definitely still been flowing, moreso recently as I push my way through some plot issues I've been having. I've been gradually filling up the pages in the notebook I use to slam out ideas, and I'm feeling hype and hoping to be able to get back to writing proper soon!

In any case, onto the point of this post. I first listened to Lauren Shippen's The Bright Sessions a couple of months ago at the recommendation of a friend and (to use a Night Vale-ism) I fell in love instantly. Framed as a series of recordings largely from the office of the enigmatic Dr. Bright, it follows the lives and therapy sessions of a number of youths with unusual abilities. Not only is it a thoroughly engaging and all around damn-well produced podcast, but the youths-with-abilities aspect is particularly neat for me, as the writer of a story about youths-with-abilities myself! It's always awesome seeing how other creators with similar-yet-different ideas shape their stories and characters, and the way they choose to utilise, treat and describe superpowers within their respective universes.

For example – in the universe of The Bright Sessions, people with unusual powers are classed as Atypicals; in the universe of No More Heroes, those with Abilities (capital A), and specifically ones who choose to take to the night with them, are called Vigilantes. The Bright Sessions focuses on the influence of these abilities on the personal, day-to-day lives of its principle characters; No More Heroes focuses on the cast's use of their talents in the concrete jungle at night. But similarly, The Bright Sessions and No More Heroes both look at the way that the possession of these abilities/Abilities can affect the characters' psyche/mental wellbeing and personal principles, and both deal with the theme of learning to control one's powers and learning more about yourself as a person. Sure, No More Heroes might have a lot more parkour and punching, but in some aspects (even if they are small) there are some parallels, haha.

Real talk though, even if I had chosen to write a completely different novel (ie. sans the inclusion of superpowers), I'm honestly just really glad that this series exists. It's well-written, well-acted and my god if Lauren Shippen doesn't know how to craft tension and a good cliffhanger. If you haven't listened to it, here's the playlist for Season 1 below – you can also listen to them all on YouTube. And hey, if you already know and like The Bright Sessions and are looking for more youths-with-abilities content, then think about checking out No More Heroes – you can buy print or digital editions through this website (and get some bonus wallpapers with your purchase), or you can buy it from Amazon or Kobo.

I've always loved action and martial arts films, so that was a big influence in the writing of No More Heroes. One of the things I really wanted to do was establish a wide range of fighting and movement styles in my cast and pit practitioners of different skill levels, styles and disciplines against each other – and with my female-bodied characters I especially wanted to give them movements that drew from more feminine-coded movement practices, like dance or gymnastics. That wasn't the case for them all, of course – I was looking for diversity in the way they moved as much as their personalities, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

I compiled a playlist with videos I drew inspiration from prior to/during my writing as well as videos I've found since – they come from films, series, animation, games and all sorts! Unlike in my selection, not every one of my characters is a martial arts superstar(!), but I was able to draw pointers on movement and fight choreography from them regardless. Check it out!

Obviously this is a pretty punch-heavy playlist, but I'm working on creating other movement playlists as well, such as for parkour/freerunning and other movement disciplines. As you may have noticed, I've created an official No More Heroes YouTube channel, so feel free to follow for more content on that as it comes!

I'm also planning on writing a blog post at a later point on one of the creators I've highlighted above – the indomitable and forever unforgettable Monty Oum (Haloid​, Dead Fantasy, Red vs Blue S08-10, RWBY S01-02). ​His direction and action/fight choreography (especially for the wonderfully girls-dominant RWBY) was by far one of the most profound influences on the way I chose to approach variation in body language and movement styles for not just my female cast, but all of the characters of No More Heroes.

If you'd like to see these characters of mine in literary action for yourself, you can get No More Heroes in print or eBook format from Amazon or Kobo.

Devil May Cry 3 is one of my favourite games for a lot of reasons. The soundtrack in particular is one I listened to probably the most while I was writing the first draft of No More Heroes, and thereafter during the editing process – generally it was battle music while I was slamming out fight scenes, but some of the level music made for a good mood-setter as well. One of my favourite pieces* is the track that plays in Mission 1 where Dante (one of my favourite game characters of all time) faces off against the Seven Hells in his office. Just look at him go.

The devil-may-care mid-fight attitude of Dante was also something I incorporated into one of my characters – if you've read No More Heroes, maybe you can guess who it is.

(Thanks to all those kids that make extended versions of game soundtrack pieces. You're tops.)

Tonally, the battle themes of the Devil May Cry 3 soundtrack are a pretty great match for the action I built into No More Heroes​. If you'd like to check out that action for yourself and maybe listen to some rad DMC3 tunes while you're reading, you can purchase it in print or eBook format from Amazon, Kobo or Gumroad.

I wish I could remember what it was exactly that made me want to write a rope dart-wielding character in No More Heroes in the first place. It's likely I saw it being used in some other piece of media (maybe a movie) around the time, but as far as I can tell I failed to write it down (wump womp). I definitely have a list of things that I researched for writing, but not the original thoughts that led me there – something to take into account for next time, I guess.

Anyway, one of the main things I looked up during my research/writing process was what are classified as the 'soft weapons' of Chinese Martial Arts – mid-to-long range weapons that are characterised by their fluidity and usually employed for stealth. They're pretty common in Martial Arts films, moreso Eastern than Western – probably the most famous use of a soft weapon in a Western action film would be Gogo Yubari's meteor hammer in Kill Bill Vol. 1.

If you'd like to check out this aforementioned rope dart-wielding character of mine and witness/read them in action, feel free to check out No More Heroes for yourself! You can purchase it from this website in print or eBook format or get it from Amazon or Kobo. In the meanwhile, here's a collection of some of the videos I watched during my early research on soft weapons and rope darts. I hope you'll find them as cool and interesting as I did! 

Fun fact – I used audio samples from this scene in my recently released book trailer. Good stuff, Chocolate; Jeeja Yanin is tops.