Casting Call!

[GoldenMaia]

Does anyone think about who is playing their characters in their stories here? Not writing about that actor/actress but rather if you were making a movie, who would you cast to play that role.

Do you think about who are playing the characters when you're reading?

 

[lovecraft68]

I've rarely envision actors as characters probably because I'm not a big movie/TV person

But the one that has always struck me is the Red headed Lucy Lawless from the Spartacus showtime show

She would be a perfect Justine(The Lady Scarlett) from my Circle series, who is a stunning redhead in her forties.

This pic says it all

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Yeah, but it's nobody you would know.

 

[GoldenCojones]

Does anyone think about who is playing their characters in their stories here? Not writing about that actor/actress but rather if you were making a movie, who would you cast to play that role.

Do you think about who are playing the characters when you're reading?

Nope. I don't ever "cast" an actor or actress for my characters. For me that would ruin my fantasy. In my mind, they are real people, living in an alternate universe of my creation. To force an image on top of them would ruin that for me. I know who they are, what they look like, how they feel, everything about them. They are friends, but more since I know every intimate detail of their being.

I wouldn't impose an actor on a "real life" friend and I wouldn't on these friends of mine either.

 

[redzinger]

I've done Pinterest boards for each of my stories. I read somewhere that it's more of a female thing to do that stuff. Not sure if that's true, but it helps when I swap from one tale to the other.

Just love this young Kelly LeBrock pic - one of my characters to a T:
https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/516295544758199231/

 

[Hypoxia]

I don't ever "cast" an actor or actress for my characters. For me that would ruin my fantasy. In my mind, they are real people, living in an alternate universe of my creation. To force an image on top of them would ruin that for me. I know who they are, what they look like, how they feel, everything about them. They are friends, but more since I know every intimate detail of their being.

My first-person narrators are more than friends because I inhabit them. The people they encounter in my stories are *their* friends, lovers, and acquaintances, not *mine*, not unless I knew them too; then they're still outside me. I know more about each player in my third-person narratives but I'm not as emotionally close to them. Third person distances me from each character and I can put them through more hoops, into more difficulties, etc.

And no, I don't imagine actors in my players' parts. But a character might be based on an acted role, whether that role is a TV personality or cartoon figure, or modeling THE THREE FACES OF EVE onto three women as three aspects of one (real) woman, or just plugging-in an Everyman / Everywoman and listening to their personal accents and thoughts.

I've mentioned a writing technique: Play the action in my mind's eye like a video, and blog it. My mind is the TV screen. Then my players have the same reality as anyone I've ever seen in media or in person at a distance -- third-person stories. Another technique: Select the players, setting, and some plot points; set the players loose, see what they say and do; transcribe them. Then they're people I know personally and I am the narrator -- first-person.

But none of those are 'actors' as such. They are personae I have encountered somewhere, somehow. They are themselves.

 

[Gorza]

Actors? No. Good actors mould themselves to fit a character, so it seems odd to me to do things the other way round.

Occasionally, an image does inspire me. This picture of French fighter pilot sous-lieutenant (now captain) Chrystel Nadeau-Gonnet, was part of my inspiration for the character of Mouse.

http://www.ouest-france.fr/sites/de...ystel-depasse-le-mur-du-son.jpg?itok=DQiK-Aok

I've done Pinterest boards for each of my stories. I read somewhere that it's more of a female thing to do that stuff. Not sure if that's true, but it helps when I swap from one tale to the other.

I've a couple of authors I edit who've I suggested use Pinterest to gather images to help inspire descriptions, although usually of places and objects. It's a useful writer's tool. It does seem Pinterest, as a digital scrapbook, seems to be more popular with women, though. Maybe we should start a thread on authors who use Pinterest. If you like a story, it would be interesting to see the author's Pinterest board that inspired them. On the other hand, it might destroy how you imagined the story.

 

[sr71plt]

I sometimes have bits and pieces of someone in my characters, but I don't model heavily on anyone (usually--some of my spy stories do model on real people).

 

[GoldenMaia]

I've done Pinterest boards for each of my stories. I read somewhere that it's more of a female thing to do that stuff. Not sure if that's true, but it helps when I swap from one tale to the other.

Just love this young Kelly LeBrock pic - one of my characters to a T:
https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/516295544758199231/

I really like this idea! Do you share the pintrest account on the story 'info' so readers know where to get it? Or in the comments? How do readers know where to go to view the pictures?

 

[Handley_Page]

I've done Pinterest boards for each of my stories. I read somewhere that it's more of a female thing to do that stuff. Not sure if that's true, but it helps when I swap from one tale to the other.

Just love this young Kelly LeBrock pic - one of my characters to a T:
https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/516295544758199231/

She is/was very attractive.
But I hate these intrusive, "Subscribe to us" over-lays which obscure the image.

 

[redzinger]

I really like this idea! Do you share the pintrest account on the story 'info' so readers know where to get it? Or in the comments? How do readers know where to go to view the pictures?

I share it every now and again on my Twitter, and there's links on my website. I suppose I should make more of it, but in a way, it's mainly more for my reference.

She is/was very attractive.
But I hate these intrusive, "Subscribe to us" over-lays which obscure the image.

Sorry, I don't see that as i'm logged in.

 

[MiddleAgedMan]

Sure, all the time

I typically base the characters' appearances on real people around me, even though their personalities are nowhere close to what I describe. I must admit there are quite a few traits in my main characters that relate to me on some level, and even though I could not see myself acting on the fantasies I describe, I can definitely 'cast' the women around me into the stories for my own pleasure.

I find that having a real fleah-and-blood person to spin my tale around helps a lot in my descriptions. I probably come off as slightly Tolkienesque in my narratives, but that is what I find arousing. On the one hand I want a story to bring images to my mind, but at the same time, I want to be explicit to capture my own fantasies 'correctly'.

Out of all my written and planned stories I can point to people I know and say: He/She looks just like **** from this or that story for most characters.

For my own peace of mind, I choose not to dwell too much on that as I interact with them in real life, but there you have it.

 

[Gorza]

I share it every now and again on my Twitter, and there's links on my website. I suppose I should make more of it, but in a way, it's mainly more for my reference.

Some readers can get upset at seeing illustrations that don't live up to their imagination. I think Pinterest works really well as a scrapbook. I usually have it open in a tab as I'm writing. I had a map of Lausanne there when writing School of Love, and a plan of the International Space Station when writing Mouse's Maiden Voyage. It does make it so much easier to gather these story-specific images in one place.

 

[legerdemer]

No, not yet, anyway.

For one, my characters evolve as the story emerges, and they evolve as their own "complete" being. Occasionally, I have used a RL character as the inspiration for a fictional character (the Voodoo priestess in my latest story, for example). Some features of some characters are inspired by RL friends or acquaintances. Even such characters, however, generally end up diverging and going their own way.

I think I agree with GoldenCojones, who earlier mentioned that assigning an actor to the part would ruin the fantasy for him.

 

[redzinger]

She is/was very attractive.

The other inspiration for her character is Raina Hein - that wide, happy-looking smile is one of the things the hero most loves about her.

I like the b&w semi-focussed or shadowy shots, where you can't see full faces. Sometimes hinting is better than saying, 'this one is HER!'

Like this - this is one of my current favourites.

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/516295544758141232/

 

[soflabbwlvr]

Not often. I have no expectation that my smut stories would ever become films. so there isn't much point in thinking about it. That being said, I did model the main character in one story--Desperate Measures: The Driver--after a movie star. (Helen Mirren).

I have one other story that was written in the style of an action movie. It wouldn't be too difficult to cast actors for Deep Undercover, but I haven't taken the time to think about it. Yet.