In building a life for Martin, the Operation"s team were forced to draw on their creative resources, and needed to think like writers.  And writers abound in the Mincemeat story, something the film plays up. The so-called "trout memo" – a list of potential ways to deceive the enemy which inspired Cholmondeley and Montagu – was likely written by James Bond author Ian Fleming, then assistant to Admiral James Godfrey, who in turn got the idea from a novel written by another espionage man-turned-fiction writer Basil Thompson. In the film you can see Jonny Flynn"s Fleming absorbing every outlandish detail for future use.