Inspiration please

With books, movies and TV shows, I find my best inspiration to be the characters, themselves. If they're interesting enough I can keep reading, watching and promoting it to friends. So, I create my own and only ever rarely play a premade. This gives me license, as it were, to create their backstories myself. Once I have my actors aligned, complete with a goal for their lives, I build the house for them. Choose a world, and the right neighborhood. I consider which season I should start them off and then plunk them into that chosen lot. (Generally, I use freerealestate on, so it doesn't eat their starting funds, which is still too little even when you create the entire family.)

I do use mods, which can help with some of the chaos. But sometimes, it's strictly the game that throws in the monkey wrench. Sudden fire, lightning, you name it. I do try to roll with the punch for the most part, but my 'star' isn't allowed to check out prematurely. I have a very loose script in my head of just what is supposed to happen.