Shelby Van Pelt based the character Tova on her late Swedish grandmother, a woman who tried to avoid grief by constantly staying busy. From this grew a story of various characters “swimming” in circles due to their circumstances, and the journeys they take to break free from those constraints.

Despite the very human themes, however, Remarkably Bright Creatures was born from an exploration of an octopus narrator as a writing exercise. Van Pelt drew this inspiration from a viral video that depicted an octopus trying to escape from a tank, which led her to explore more about these animals and what they were capable of. In her article “Lessons Learned from a Year Listening to the Fictional Octopus in My Head,” which appeared on Literary Hub in May 2022, Van Pelt relates how exploring the character of Marcellus gave her another lens through which to view human strengths and weaknesses.

Listening to her internal Marcellus helped Van Pelt take a hard look at her day-to-day life and the human propensity for justifying damaging behavior: “The longer I spent with my octopus-narrator, the more I caught myself viewing humans through his lens. And the more I found myself exasperated by human behavior, including my own.