So I've been thinking about this a lot over the past few days. With your characters, do you imagine actors or celebrities that look like your characters and suit their personalities to give you a better image of what they look like etc? Or do you not 'cast' them? I know a few people draw their characters which seems to be a better way to do things, but for those who cannot draw, do you use real lif actors and actresses to imagine them? I'm asking because I'm unsure on whether casting is a good idea. It may seem a bit trivial but being Autistic, I am very keen on a high level of detail and find that having actors to imagine my characters helps, but is it just setting me up to fail? Sorry for the long post, all replies are welcomed. Thanks.
Not usually. I take vague ideas from them but mostly the character creates his own image in my mind after a while. But if you have a hard time visualizing things a star's likeness could help or you could go onto a photo site or Instagram and find and image of someone who would best represent your character. I'm not too big on the exterior looks of a character - if I know what my characters opinions are, his attitude, choices, actions, likes, dislikes then all those things will make a clear picture of him in my head. One of the best ways I know to set that image is to write out a scene that will showcase the overall attitude of my character.
Nope. I concept art (though intermediate) as I am not a great artist, though I try. Casting would throw things off.
I do this, although most of the time I'll use the celebrity/actor/model as a starting point and tweak their appearance mentally until I'm happy with it. These were my inspiration photos for my Under the Knife MC's Nate and Zachary: Zachary as portrayed by Mikołaj Krawczyk, a Polish soap opera star. Nate as portrayed by Chef Jason Quinn of Playground restaurant in Los Angeles, CA (his appearance on Chopped solidified this for me).
I did when I was working on my first novel attempt (back in the last Ice Age), but I found it didn't help. In the end, it served to limit my character options to how I saw the pictured celeb. However, while working on my current project, I realized about 20% of the way into the first draft that one of my characters was uncomfortably similar to a certain detective in a certain popular TV crime show. I immediately went back and made some corrections.
I have to say, I've never done that. They just kind of...appear to me. To be honest, though, I have an appearance that goes with each name - Anita has blonde, wavy hair and brown eyes, while Natasha is dark-haired with green eyes. Sometimes, I even have an outfit to go with these faces - Paula wears a lilac dress with puffed sleeves and a ribbon around the waist. This means that when I name a character, I can already picture their face. Sometimes I tweak these appearances slightly for specific characters - Elsie's dress is a 1930s sort of style, while my book with an Elsie in it is set in 1911, so I picture her in a more period-appropriate attire. I also made her hair less glossy and her pink-and-white complexion turned sallow, because I felt it fitted her character and backstory better. I also have two Cecilias in different books, and one has pink cheeks, a round sort of face, and curly hair, whereas the other is taller, with a narrower face and lanker hair, but they both have auburn hair and brown eyes. Priscilla's blonde hair turned black to match her sisters. And so on and so forth.
Only to the extent that I'll adopt the visual characteristics. I'll say that the character was, say, a plumper version of Julianne Moore, to give the reader a first impression of the character. I think we often do that with people we first meet, as a way of relating what we're experiencing to what our past experiences have been. After that, it's up to me to make the character my own.
I don't cast of such, but I do enjoy thinking about what actors could play my characters if it was a TV series. I think Matt King would play my MC well, if the TV version focused more on bringing out the alternative, offbeat version of him. Or Steve Coogan, they brought his more neurotic, world weary side out. Or perhaps Phillip Gelnister, if the TV series took the edge of his neurotic side and bigged up his un PC, tactless way of dealing with people. But I actually imagine him to look like a younger Bryan Ferry.
Not really, but I have a hard time visualize people, so sometimes google up some pictures to have something to go on. Mostly it's models or regular people and usually a mix of people. I think my brain would associate too much with the actor in question if I used someone I knew about.
Regular people (even random strangers I see) and people I have worked with normally supply me with a lot of inspiration. It's pretty rare to get that from somebody famous (for me).
It's certainly not something I do, but I don't see the harm, especially if it helps you characterise. The only possible risk is if you allow the real-life actors to take control of your characters.
I don't - back when I used to pbp rp, 'casting' was required by most sites and I always found it really annoying, and I think I still have some leftover resentment over the whole idea. I usually have pretty clear mental images of my characters, so picking out a real face is always going to be settling. It can never be just right, and if it ain't perfect, I ain't havin' it. There's nothing inherently wrong with it, I don't believe, and I know it helps some people to visualize their characters, so that's cool. In rp I definitely knew some people who only picked their characters' faces based on actors/whatever who they found hot, which I always found a bit weird. Not necessarily to be avoided, I guess, I just always found it a bit shallow? In that scene, at least, it was substituting attractiveness for like, actually developing characters, so I'd be wary if you feel like you might be doing something like that. "He looks like Christian Bale" isn't a character trait. That's really the only potential pitfall I can think of. Well, I'd also be wary of for instance picking Christian Bale to 'play' your character who's gone years without sleeping and looks quite skeletal and maybe hit someone with his car in the past but can't remember it, but ... I'd hope 'casting this actor as my character who's a lot like a role the actor played' should be an obviously sketchy territory. I do have a lingering vague fondness for some actors and models who, at least, fit decently well, though. Paul Bettany, Ben Barnes, Bartek Borowiec, Ellen Page - any time I see them some part of me is like "hey, it's [character]!"
I find my 'casting' tends to go around in a bit of a circle. I start with the vague image of the characters in my mind, then find celebrities with similar features and use them to refine the image. I then tweak it a bit more so that they turn into sort of a mish mash of my ideas aided by some real life visuals. Sometimes when I'm trying to picture scenes I imagine my story as if it was a movie and put the actors I'd have playing them in the scenes. It's a bit of a mix up sometimes but I find it works for me. I also mock them up on character creators in video games, I find The Sims works really well for this sort of thing. Don't know if that's something that might help you to @fictionwriter5 . I personally find it really helps to have something solid to use for reference to get me into the zone when I open up my work in progress. Just included a snapshot of the sort of thing I ended up with: (Ezra Miller and Maika Monroe had the looks I was going for with my first 2 characters)
This sounds like an intriguing idea. Normally, i think all of the work outside of writing is distracting, but I imagine having sketched characters allows you to better describe them over and over throughout the novel (though now I wonder if too much: Give each character a Wart)
Well, although I am not the master writer, I use this "aid". Why not? It is free, those people will probably never know they were models. But I use this only for my needs, I do not show it anyone or anywhere. I have CVs for my characters. A CV for every character contains information about everything important that had happened in their lives to the moment when they appear in my story, then information about their physical appearance, their family and friends, and their character - what they like, what they do not like, and recently I added some important quotes of the character herself/himself and opinions of others on that character. In my story from "the Middle Ages" characters also use horses and different weapons, so CVs of these characters contain also brief information about horses they use (mainly because it is a symbol, and especially one horse plays a very important role ), and, of course, information about what weapons they use, whether they fight with two swords, or only with one, whether they use shields, crossbows, etc.. And CVs also contain a picture how they approximately look like. It is sometimes quite hard to find someone who looks like my character, so I do not limit myself only to actors and actresses. I look for models for my characters anywhere. One of my characters is a mixture of 3 real actresses. And on real person for one of the most important characters I came across by chance, and he is almost perfect. And I can only recommend this "aid". In my eyes the characters come to life, like they really live somewhere. And it is a source of inspiration and in some things I just adjust my character to the real person, of course, if it is not something I insist on or need for my story.
I do 'cast', but rarely with celebrities: I prefer using people I see, or pictures of ordinary (or ordinary looking) folk I come across when browsing. If I do find myself basing a physical description on an actor (it does help focus the description, and with my own 'seeing' the way they move and hold themselves) they're lesser-known character actors rather than stars or glamorous types
I used to rp as well and yes indeed, playbys/faceclaims were always required for creating characters! I was not bothered by it though, it was fun and it was a nice to be able to visualize your character in your mind clearly. I think for me it is nice to have a general idea of how my character looks like. A perfect fit can be difficult to find, but perhaps a set of people with similar features so you have a general idea.
What's a lot of fun is to do this AFTERWARDS. After you know what your character is like, and maybe even after you've finished writing the story, be on the lookout for a picture of somebody who looks like that character. It's no help with the writing, but it is fun.
Not the face, but I based one character's singing voice (which does play a role) on that of a girl in my school. I find it helps with imagining her singing when I have something to hear in my head.
I do often pick casts of actors that I think would be awesome fits if the book were moviefied; but its more of an after thought or just for fun. I usually have a fairly clear depiction of the character in my head first, and then I think what actor's looks and personalities would fit well. My current cast for my book's MCs are Andrew Garfield, Jerika Hinton, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (The Mountain) as the orc, Michael Rosenbaum as the android, and Uma Thurman as the dark elf.
To be honest I usually make up my characters in terms of appearance, though I have cast a few of them. My most popular character Jopar Edmond Tanaka turned into Ben Affleck a few years ago after seeing a scene from the movie Boiler Room. And for those who might be wondering how a white guy has a Japanese name, ancestry. (Warning: liberal F-bomb usage.) This is Jopar almost to a T, the attitude, body language, so on. As it happens Jopar is also extremely wealthy and the president/CEO of Edmond Enterprises. Funny thing is I had, for the most part, fully created Jopar before seeing this scene from Boiler Room.
I tend towards fan-fiction because it's easier to visualize an existing character. But I do 'cast' my own, otherwise I get the 'chameleon' effect when I'm trying to picture the character's face in my mind. I do also have that problem with any canon characters I'm not as familiar with.
I do this sometimes. For my WIP, I have imagined at times my mentor/leader character, Stewart as Douglas Henshall. And the higher up, but more distant, leader character of Wesker as Peter Capaldi. I have found it kind of helps build a more detailed image of a character. If you just imagine it in your head, then it's easier to have a less complete image, because your brain can kind of pretend to have one by filling it in with an insubstantial and variable sense of detail. If that makes any sense. Obviously though, using actors or other people can end up being a lazy way of doing character creation.
